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1 7 



IIISTOKY 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 




A OS n © IT Cj 



HISTORY 



ASD 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION, 



THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT. 



INTENDED A3 



A MANUAL FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS. 



By PHILOBTBLIUS. . ^'^ 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION By\ 

HENRY BARNARD, LLD., 

OHANCELLOK OF THJS UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN. 



NEW YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY A. S. BARNES & BURR, 

51 & 53 JOHN-STREET, 

1860. 



■> 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, 
Bv A. S. BARNES & BUKR, 
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
Southern District of New York. 



BENNIE, SHEA A LINDSA Y, %. 

Stbbboivpeks ^yv Elbcieotypers, GEO. W. WOOD, Printi*, 

81,83&85 Cestke-Street. No. 2 Dutch-st., N. Y. , 
NEW YORK. 



PREFACE. 



In offering to tlie public the accompauying 
" History of Education," the writer begs leave 
to say, that it has been his object rather to 
prepare a manual for the student, than a work 
of greater pretension for the mere literary 
man. The field is almost wholly untrodden 
in our own language, the very brief and im- 
perfect little treatise of Schmidt being, it is 
believed, the only work professedly devoted 
to this topic, which is accessible to those who 
read English only. The works of Fritz, De 
Riancy, De Viriville, Schwarz, and Niemeyer, 
in French and German, are valuable ; but of 
these, only that of De Viriville, which is con- 
fined to European, and particularly to French 



6 PREFACE. 

education, is at all recent; and all of tliem 
view the subject too exclusively from the 
continental stand-point. Hallam's History of 
Literature is invaluable for the period of 
which it treats, and throws more light on the 
educational condition of Great Britain, up to 
the eighteenth century, than any other work. 
The complete history of education in the 
United States is yet to be written ; let us 
hope that the life and health of the eminent 
scholar * who has so long been engaged in its 
preparation, may be spared, till he shall have 
completed a work which cannot fail greatly 
to enhance his already exalted reputation. 
Meantime, we have been able to glean from 
the pages of the American Journal of Edu- 
cation^ and other educational periodicals, suffi- 
cient facts to answer the purpose of our 
manual. 

* Hon. Henry Barnard. 



PREFACE, 7 ' 

Tlie preparation of tliis manual has been a 
work of severe and protracted toil ; it would 
have been far easier to have made it much 
larger ; and it might have suited a few of our 
readers better, had we given references to the 
authorities quoted, at the foot of each page ; 
but, mindful of our purpose, we have studied 
condensation, and, while verifying with the 
utmost care every reference, have deemed a 
bibliographical list of authorities, at the close 
of the work, sufficient, and more unpretending 
than a pompous array of foot-notes, which 
should refer to works, many of which not one 
reader in a thousand could consult. 

The writer cannot, in justice to his own 
feelings, close this preface without acknowl- 
edging his obligations to Hon. Henry Barnard 
for many kindnesses received in the prepara- 
tion of this volume ; and especially for free 
.3cess to his valuable library, the most exten- 



8 PEEFACE. 

sive, in this specialty, in the United States. 
Much of what is valuable in the work, is due 
to this kindly assistance ; for any faults of 
style, or errors of fact, which may be found in 
it, the writer is alone responsible. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Definition. — Intellectual and physical training in Vhe antedilu- 
vian period. — The ages after the Flood. — Circumstances favoring 
civilization, and intellectual development. — Education in India. 
— Caste. — Education denied to the lower castes, and to women. . 25 

CHAPTER II. 

Education in Egypt and Ethiopia.— Caste. — Instruction exoteric 
and esoteric. — Females of the higher castes educated. — Educfl- 
tion confined to the higher castes. — The masses degraded and 
oppressed. — Egypt the seat of the highest learning at a later 
period. — Education among the Chinese. — Schools. — System of 
instruction. — Education a necessary qualification for high ofiBcial 
station. — Literary honors and degrees. — Much of this education 
only intended to develop the memory. — Chinese keys, for ex- 
aminations 35 

CHAPTER III. 

The Japanese. — Their scientific discoveries. — Education of prosti- 
tutes. — Ancient Babylonians and Assyrians. — Evidence of their 
educational condition allbrded by recent discoveries. — Ancient 
Persians. — Parsees or Fire Worshipers. — Magi. — Their position. 
— Xenophon's accoiint of education in the time of Cyrus. — The 
four classes. — This education confined to those possessing some 
property. — Female degradation. — Little accomplished for educa- 
tion by Zartusht or Zoroaster , . . . . 45 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Hebrews. — Beauty of their literature. — Evidence it aifords of 
extensive acquaintance with natural science. — Instruction among 
the higher classes. — Learning of Solomon and some of his asso- 
1« 



10 CONTENTS. 

ciates.-r-Education mostly confined to the family. — No schools, 
properly so called, among them, till near the Christian era. — 
Schools of the Kabbins 55 

CHAPTER V. 

The Greeks. — Influence of their systems of education on other 
nations. — The Homeric period. — Ulysses, Achilles, and Patro- 
clus. — The period of the Lawgivers. — Ltcuegus. — Brief bio- 
graphical sketch. — The Spartan system.- — More limited in its 
application than generally supposed. — Solon. — Peculiarities of 
his system. — Instruction confined to the higher classes, and 
ioiLiJd"nto slaves and women, e.\cept courtesans. — Pythagoras. 
— His extensive travels. — The philosophic character of his in- 
structions. — His course exoteric and esoteric. — General view of 
his system. — Its exemplification in some of his followers 61 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Greeks continued. — Socrates. — Eminently an educator. — His 
method. — The practical results more fully developed in the 
teachings of Plato. — The theories of education of the latter as 
developed in his "Republic," his "Sophistes," and other works. 
— Aristotle, the wisest of the Grecian teachers. — His " Natural 
History." — His "Politics." — Successors of Aristotle. — The 
schools of Athens and Alexandria. — Review of Greek education. 75 

CHAPTER VII. 

The Romans. — Early education mainly moral and physical. — In- 
troduction of Greek instruction. — Education under the Empire. 
— Tendencies of the Roman less intellectual than those of the 
Greek.— Female education not general. — Quintilian. — Varro. — 
The orphan schools of Antoninus Pius. — The Druids. — Little 
known of their system of education 89 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Education among the Arabs and Saracens. — Period prior to 
Mohammed. — Influence of Mohammed. — The Ommiades and 
Abassides. — The translation of Aristotle. — Spain, the principal 
seat of Saracen learning. — Its extent. — Mexican provision for 
education. — The Calmecac. — Picture writing.— Their calendar. 
— The Council of Music, and its duties. — Mexican poetry. — The 
Peruvians. — Their intellectual culture less extensive than the 
Mexican. — The Quipu. — The ballads of the liaravecs. — Agricul- 
ture among the Peruvians 101 



CONTENTS. 11 

CHAPTER IX. 

EDTJCATioif SINCE THE Chkistian ERA. — The character and influence 
of the teachings of Christ and of his Apostles. — The influence of 
Christianity in modifying the family relation, and tlie social and 
intellectual position of woman. — Testimony of Libanius. — Early 
Christian education mainly domestic. — School at Alexandria. — 
Pantasnus. — Origen. — Schools at Cesarea. — At Antioch, Edessa, 
Rome, Carthage, &c. — The schools for Catechumens merely of 
a religious character ] 21 

CHAPTER X. 

Period of Constantine and his successors. — The Western Empire 
given over to barbarism. — Corruption of the Latin laisgnage. — 
Capella. — Analysis of his Satyricon. — Cassiodoktjs. — Worth 
lessness of his text-books. — Bishop Isidore of Seville. — Contents 
of his Origines. — This regarded as the most learned book of the 
dark ages. — The cathedral and monastic schools. — Meagerness 
of instruction in them. — Scarcity of parchment and papyrus. 
— Palimpsests 131 

CHAPTER XI. 

Education in the British Isles. — Charlemagne, the most efficient 
friend of education at this period. — His invitation to Alcuin. 
— His Capitularies. — Services of Alcuin in promoting education. 
— Paul the Deacon, Peter of Pisa, Clement the Hibernian, and 
Raban Maur also rendered valuable service. — Alfred the Great, 
the educational reformer of Britain. — Saracen learning at this 
period. — Eminent Jewish scholars of the time 141 

CHAPTER XII. 

Universities in Italy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. — De- 
partments of law and medicine established. — Schools of the 
Benedictine and other monastic orders. — Cause of the establish^ 
ment of universities. — The scholastic philosophy and its found- 
ers. — Its influence. — Condition of education in the' Eastern 
Empire. — The etforts of the dynasty of Comnenus for its im- 
provement. — Downfall of the Eastern Empire. — Reflex influence 
upon Russia 151 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Scholasticism and mysticism in Western Europe.— Course of study 
in the universities in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 
— Colleges. — Establishment of gymnasia and trivial schools in 



N. 



12 CONTENTS. 

Germany. — Bacchantes and A. B. C. shooters. — Hardships of the 
latter. — The mtroduction of linen and cotton paj^er. — Text-books 
of the period. — Severity of the school discipline. — Eminent 
friends of education among the mystics. — Female education 
much neglected during this period 161 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Chivalry, and its influence upon education. — The celebration of 
the deeds of its heroes in song. — Troubadours, Trouveres, and 
Minnesingers. — Chansons and sirventes. — Kevival of literature in 
Italy iu the fourteenth century. — Formative influence on the 
languages of Europe. — Emigration of Chrysoloras and other 
eminent Greek teachers to Southern Europe. — Prevalence of the 
study of classic Greek. — Vittorino da Feltre, one of the most 
eminent teachers of the age. — The patronage of letters by the 
Medici and other Italian sovereigns. — Eminent scholars and 
teachers in Italy. — Gerard Groot and the Brethren of the Com- 
mon Life. — Establishment of the schools of Eton and Winchester 
in England 171 

CHAPTER XV. 

Moral condition of Europe at the close of the fourteenth century 
and the commencement of the fifteenth. — Invention of the art of 
printing. — Discovery of America. — Influence of these events in 
promoting education. — Eminent scholars and teachers in Ger- 
many in the fifteentli century. — The dawn of the Reformation in 
the sixteenth century. — Erasmus, Luther, Melancthon, Zuiug- 
lius, and Calvin as educators. — Abundance of Luther's labors for 
the general difi'usion of education 183 

CHAPTER XVI. 

John Sturm, the most eminent teacher in Germany in the six- 
teenth century. — Trotzendorf and other eminent cotemporaries 
of Sturm. — Progress of education in England. — The organization 
of schools and a system of education by the Jesuits. — Principal 
features of this system. — M. Villers' characterization of it. — Text- 
books used by the Jesuits. — The good results they did accom- 
plish.. — Decline of the best Protestant schools 193 

CHAPTER XVII. 

The Novvin Organon of Lord Bacon. — The era of the Classicists. 
— Rabelais, Montaigne. — Peter Ramus and the Aristotelian phi- 
losophy. — Progress in the higher mathematics and in physical 
science. — The improvements in geographical science. — Stepheu's 



CONTENTS. 13 

Themuri/s.—Constant'm, Calepin, and Scapula's dictionaries. — 
WoLFGAXG Katich.— His ncw plans, and their fanlts.— John- 
Amos CoMENics, deserving of high honor for his labors in the 
cause of education. — His Jam/a Linguanim Eeserata. — His Orbis 
Sensualium P ictus, the first illustrated school-book. — His other 
educational works 203 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

The Jansenists, and their labors in the cause of education. — Emi- 
nent classical scholars of the seventeenth century. — Progress of 
literature in Europe during the century. — The School of Pietists. 
— Fenelon.— His Adventures of Telemac?ius.S-p-EyTrii. — The Uni- 
versity of Halle.— Feancke.— His philanthropic zeal.— The or- 
phan school, and the institutions connected with it. — Want of 
classic training, a defect in these schools. — Tendency to Phari- 
seeism subsequently develofied 213 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Progress of education in the New England colonies, m the seven- 
teenth century. — Legal provision for the establishment of schools 
and colleges in Massachusetts and Connecticut. — Legislation of 
New York for the same end. — Other colonies. — Scotland the first 
country in Europe to establish a system of common schools. — De 
la Salle and the Brothers of the Christian Schools. — Statistics of 
these schools in 1856 223 

CHAPTER XX. 

The Humanists, and their system of instruction. — Eminent Hu- 
manist teachers. — J. J. Rousseau. — Influence of his " Emile''' 
upon education. — John Locke. — John B. Basedow. — His early 
career. — The " Elementar - Wtrlc.'''' — The Ph ilardhropinum. — 
Small success of his personal teachings. — The impulse given to 
education by his efforts. — Wolke and the other successors of Base- 
dow. — Count Zinzendoi-f. — Humanitarian institutions devoted 
to the education of the deaf and dumb, the blind, juvenile 
ofl'enders, &c. — Special schools of commerce, &c. — Eminent 
German writers on education 2 51 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Pestalozzi. — Abstract of his views on education, as developed in 
his works. — Objections to some of his positions. — His own im- 
perfect success as a teacher. — Prevalence of the Pestalozzian 
system at the present day. — Other educational reformers cotem- 
porary with Pestalozzi. — Fellenberg, Jacotot, Felbiger, Father 



14 CONTENTS. 

Girard, and Lancaster. — Ecview of their several methods. — 
Adoption of the Method of Sagan, introduced by Felbiger, in 
Austria. — The Lancasterian system. — At one time prevalent in 
England and America. — Its defects. — Tlie lahons of Oberlin, the 
brothers Zeller, Vehrli, and Wiehern, in promoting education. 
—Cheering prospects of the future ...'. 241 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Ecview of the present condition of education in the principal coun- 
tries of the world. — England.— Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain, 
;-.:i'l Portugal.— The States of the Church, Sardinia, Tusc.ny, 
Naples, Turkey, Greece, Russia, Lapland, and Finmark.- ZTor- 
way, Sweden, and Denmark 255 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

The German States. — Prussia, Saxony, and Wurtemberg. — Austria, 
Bohemia, Croatia, and the Austrian Archduchies in Italy. — Bava- 
ria, Mecklenburg, and the smaller States. — Eminent living and 
recent German writers on education. — Africa. — Egypt and the 
tributaries of the Porte. — Algiers, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cape 
Colony. — Other portions of the African continent. — Asia. — Per- 
sia, Independent and Chinese Tartary, Afghanistan and Beloo- 
chistan, Siberia, China, and Japan.— Thibet, Siam, Tonquin, 
Burmah, Malacca, the Karens and Shyens, India, Australia, 
New Zealand, and the Pacific islands 269 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

North and South America.— Canada East and "West. — United 
States. — Northern and Southern States. — Hispano-American 
States : Mexico, Central America, »fcc.— AVest India Islands : 
Cuba, Porto Eico, Jamaica, Trinidad, Hayti, &c. — South Amei- 
ica. — New Grenada, Venezuela, Ecuador. — French, Dutch, and 
British Guiana. — Brazil, the Argentine Confederation, Buenos 
Ayres, Uruguay, and Paraguay. — Chile, Bolivia, and Peru 279 

Statistical Tables 293 

Bibliography 297 

Index 301 



,OT110DUCTI0N. 



In aa age so peculiarly and eagerly progressive 
as the present, the profound saying of Solomon, 
that "Hiere is no new thing under the sun," is 
eminently liable to be forgotten ; and investigators 
and experimenters, absorbed in what they are 
doing, and still more in what they desire and hope 
to do, utterly forget that any thing has ever been 
done before. 

Yet no subject, now interesting or important, can 
be adequately understood, or further investigated, 
unless proper pains be first bestowed upon its 
history. The truth of this proposition is so clear, 
in relation to mechanic arts and the various depart- 
ments of natural science, that it scarcely needs 
illustration. The machinist, for example, is com- 
pelled, by the very course of the labors of his 
apprenticeshi]^, to master those results of all the 
centuries of thought, of imagination, and of tireless 
exertion, which are so w^onderfully exemplified in 



16 ' INTRODUCTION. 

every great worksliop. He cannot, in tlie nature 
of tilings, re-invent and construct for sale the 
imperfect steam-engine of Newcomen, or tlie com- 
paratively clumsy early power-looms of Arkwright. 
The watchmaker could not sell clepsydras, nor 
" IN'uremberg eggs ;" he absolutely tnust avail him- 
self of the results of that long train of ingenious 
and skillful men, whose latest representatiA^es are 
our own Yankee clock and watch manufacturers. 
In these cases there is neither doubt nor danger. 
The tendency of trade, the weight of gain, an influ- 
ence as universal and unerring as gravitation, 
determines the mechanic. In the market, it is only 
the latest improvement Avliich commands a sale ; 
and the steady force of the law of supply and 
demand, and the sleepless instinct of gain, is a 
sufficient warrant that, while superfluities are 
dropped, and improvements are adopted, no re- 
invention of an exj)loded contrivance, nor retro- 
gression to an older and more imperfect condition, 
will be allowed. 

The same is true in the oj)posite i)ursuit of the 
most abstract philosophy. It is imj)ossible to con- 
ceive of any person's attempting to put forth a 
system of philosophical belief, who shall not first 
have made, not perhaps the best use, but at all 



INTEODUCTION. 17 

events liis OTvn use, of tlie wliole long series of 
philosophers, from Aristotle to Sir William Hamil- 
ton. For the grade of intellect and cultivation 
which admits him to conceive of such a system, 
renders any other supposition impossible. And no 
preface is more unfailing, or more determinate in 
substance, than the historical view in whif^h -the 
modern philosopher upsets the theories of all his 
predecessors, creating, like an Asiatic conqueror, a 
wide-spread desert in which to erect his throne. 

There is no department of human exertion, how- 
ever, in which this preliminary historical knowledge 
is so necessary as in education. For this there is 
both a general and a special reason. The education 
of a people bears a constant and most pre-eminently 
influential relation to its attainments and excel- 
lences — physical, mental, and moral. Tlie national 
education is at once a cause and an effect of the 
national character ; and, accordingly, the history of 
education affords the only ready and perfect key to 
the history of the human race, and of each nation 
in it, — an unfailing standard for estimating its 
advance or retreat upon the line of human progress. 

But the special reason just alluded to, is yet more 
in'point at this time. It is, that there is no depart- 
ment of human exertion whose annals are more 



18 INTEODUCTION. 

brilliant with displays of industiy, talent, and 
genius, whether successful or unsuccessful ; and 
consequently" none in which a reference to the past 
will afford such abundant materials for improve- 
ment in the present. 

In our own country all this pre-eminent truth, 
regarding education, is again still more pre-emi- 
nently true. JSTowhere among ci^dlized nations is 
the business of education pursued with such utter 
lack of system, such complete, unsympatliizing, 
independent, self-dependent isolation of effort, — 
though yet with a fervor, devotion, energy, and 
natural capacity almost equally unrivaled. 

Yet our system of education has, nevertheless, 
been so universally and efficiently successful as a 
practical system — or, to state more correctly what 
is a cotemporary rather than a resulting fact, the 
men and communities trained under it have been, 
and are, characterized by so many excellences — as 
to furnish what seems a conclusive refutation of the 
positions taken. 

But the reason of this is not to be looked for in 
the system itself. It can only be found by means 
of a broad estimate of the total influence of all the 
social, political, and religious circumstances of our 
people. Our men and women grow up within a 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

home atmosphere of purity, of active thought and 
intelhgent cultivation ; all their powers are keenly 
stimulated by national prosperity, unlimited free- 
dom in all good endeavors, and a social equality 
absolutely ideal in its perfection ; and they are, 
nevertheless, living under the wholesome though 
almost unfelt restraints of laws and governments 
adapted to a free and good people, with a wisdom 
only less than divine. And men and women grow- 
ing up under such circumstances, will commonly 
become good and useful and intelligent members of 
the commonwealth, by virtue of forces which might 
even be termed independent of a few years' school- 
ing, were it not that we know how greatly the 
school training aids, fortifies, confirms, and enhances 
all the good results of the other influences of life. 

Tlie comjDaratively high standard of mental and 
moral attainment reached by the graduates of our 
educational institutions, is not a proof that our 
educators do not need the same aids, and the same 
use of them, as those of other countries. Because 
they succeed astonishingly well w^ithout them, it 
would be folly to argue that they would not succeed 
still far better wath them ; and if this is so, it is 
unnecessary to prove at length that it is a duty to 
use them. 



20 INTKODUCTION. 

The educators of the United States — to resume 
the course of remark interrupted bj this reference 
to the apparent actual results of their labors — are 
even peculiarly destitute of the advantages deriva- 
ble from a competent knowledge of the history of 
education. Deprived, as most of them are and 
must be. of any thing like a scientific training in 
their profession, and thus left to make the best use 
in their power of their own recollections of school- 
days, of brief and superficial observation, and of 
short courses of technical instruction at teachers' 
institutes or normal schools, they are liable to all 
the errors of inexperience and youth. And by just 
as much as they are ardently interested, by just as 
much as their minds are full of their occu23ation, 
and fruitful in suggestions of principles and methods 
for prosecuting it, by precisely so much are they 
more liable to re-invent modes and ideas which 
have been tried and given up before, and thus to 
spend precious months, or years even, in pursuing 
and detecting errors which a small knowledge of 
the history of their profession would have prevented 
them from practicing for a moment, and would 
have taught them carefully to avoid. 

A self-taught modern geometer, who, in the 
forests of the West, should re-discover the solution 



INTKODUCTION. 21 

of tlie Pythagorean problem, — or a matliematician 
who should, in solitary, ignorant study, re-invent 
the •common system of logarithms or the calculus, 
might possess a genius as great, possibly, as Py- 
thagoras, or ISTapier, or JSTewton. But the vain 
pomposity of a self-taught genius is proverbial. 
The manner of his announcement of his discoyery, 
if not the matter of it, would insure him infinite 
ridicule; and his wisest friends could furnish him 
no consolation better than theii' regrets that, instead 
of painfully laboring through those difficult ways, 
he had not exercised the privilege and the duty of 
the judicious student, passed forward to the existing 
limits of knowledge by the friendly aid of his pred- 
ecessors, and then expended his powers, at once for 
his own real fame and for the actual good of his 
race, by bravely plunging forward into the infinite 
realms of the unknown, and adding a new province 
to the empires of human thought. 

Instances of the wasteful method of re-discovery 
here alluded to, often come under the notice of 
those whose reading has made them acquainted 
with educational history. It is unnecessary to cite 
in this place more than one or two of these, for 
illustration's sake. Within a few years, the use of 
newspapers in schools, in the place of reading-books, 



22 II^TRODUCTION. 

has been recommended in various quarters, as a 
modern invention. It is modern only in the same 
sense in which newspapers are modern ; for that 
great educator and excellent man, John Amos 
Comenins, recommended the same use of a gazette 
published in Holland, or of some periodical of 
similar character, about the year 1640, when news- 
papers were first struggling into existence. The 
various uses of apparatus, of school museums and 
collections of natural history, of the whole circle of 
actual objects which are, at the present day, more 
and more urged, and brought into use to illustrate 
and enforce the oral instructions of the teacher, 
were all elaborately advocated, in principle, and to 
a great extent in detail, by the same Comenius, and 
again, with vastly greater good fortune and success, 
after the laj^se of a centuiy and a half, by Pes- 
talozzi. Indeed, it is little or no exaggeration to 
say that the whole range of the " modern improve- 
ments" in instruction, which are now in progress 
among us, which are doing so useful a work, and 
which are regarded by their advocates and exempli- 
fiers with so much just complacency, will be found 
to have been conceived, and often discussed and 
elaborated at great length, seventy years ago, by 
the little company of ardent and laborious teachers 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

who, with Pestalozzi, did so great a work at Burg- 
dorf and Yverdiin. 

But this presentation of the point under dis- 
cussion will suffice ; and its length would even be 
superfluous, were it not for the singular exception 
to the good old rule of judging from experience, 
which has prevailed in the case of education.^ - 

It is the design of the present work to furnish 
such an account of the various systems of education 
which have characterized races, or have enjoj^ed a 
successive pre-eminence during the historical ages 
of the world, as shall afford the student a competent 
general view of their spirit and practice. Its limits, 
of course, preclude that fullness of detail, and length 
of discussion, which would be necessary to an 
exhaustive treatment of the subject, or to any 
endeavor after such treatment. That task would 
require a work many times more voluminous than 
the present ; for the great problems of education 
are either identical, or inextricably and influentially 
interwoven, with all the great problems of human 
life and action. The views which are here given 
are intended to possess such a measure of complete- 
ness as may insure their competent accuracy, and 
as will enable the reader to form a fair and intelli- 
gent judgment upon the leading practical questions 



24 INTllODUCTION. 

of education. It traces their history in practice, 
from nation to nation, and from age to age; and, 
even if some more zealous student should fail to 
find the work as encyclopedic . as he might desire, 
it will aftbrd him much food for thought, and may 
prove a most valuable stimulus to further investi- 
gntion. As the pioneer American work in its 
department, it may legitimately both bespeak kind 
consideration and demand credit. And if it sluill, 
at sonie future time, point out the way for a more 
voluminous historian to erect a more stately and 
extensive structure of narrative and exposition, this 
alone will be no small advantage and no small 

praise. 

IIENEY BARNAED. 

Madison, AVis., Oct., 1859. 



HISTORY 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 



CHAPTER I. , 

Definition. — Intellectual and physical training in the antediluvian 
period. — The ages after the Flood. — Circumstances favoring civili- 
zation, and intellectual development. — Education in India. — Caste. 
— Education denied to the lower castes, and to women. 

The origin of the word education (educo^ I 
lead or draw out), implies the idea of devel- 
opment, and hence we include in the term 
education, whatever tends to develop the 
physical, the intellectual, or the moral powers 
of man. In this extended sense, it commences 
with the birth of the infant, continues through 
life, and, we have reason to believe, progresses 
through the future state of being. It em- 



26 HISTORY AND 

braces the training of the physical powers, the 
instruction and improvement of the intellectual 
faculties, and the culture of the moral affec- 
tions and emotions. We are accustomed, 
therefore, to speak of physical, intellectual, 
and moral or religious education. 

In a more restricted sense, however, edu- 
cation is sometimes used to signify only the 
training of the intellect, or sometimes of the 
intellect and moral nature combined. In at- 
tempting to give a brief historical sketch of 
the progress of education, we shall use the 
term mainly in the latter sense ; for among the 
earlier nations, the priests were, for the most 
part, the only teachers, and instruction and 
worship were so intimately associated, that it 
would be impossible to sever them, while the 
cultivation of the physical powers was left to 
nature, and to the circumstances and neces- 
sities of each race. 

In the early history of mankind, the instincts 
were, of course, first developed; the body 
must be protected from atmospheric changes, 
and the natural clothing of beasts afforded the 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 27 

means of accomplishing this ; shelter from the 
sun and rain, and protection from wild beasts 
was the next necessity, and for this purpose, 
booths made from the branches of trees, or 
huts from their trunks (both of which seem to 
have preceded tents, which, however, were 
soon invented, for the conveijicnrc oi the 
shepherd and herdsman), were constructed; 
the domestication of some of the animal tribes, 
and their protection from beasts of prey, came 
next in order ; and for this purpose, weapons, 
which, even prior to the Deluge, seem to have 
been made of iron or copper, were required ; 
and thus the mere physical necessities of man 
were satisfied 

But even at this early period, in the seventh 
generation from Adam, the intellectual tastes 
began to be cultivated : for we find that the 
love of music led, in the case of Jubal, to the 
invention of some rude instruments of music, 
probably, as the Hebrew words imply, the 
lyre and the Pandean pipe. Of the further 
progress of the antediluvians in the arts and 
sciences, the sacred record gives us little infor- 



2S HISTORY AND 

matioii ; we learn, indeed, that they had some 
rude notions of architecture, and some knowl- 
edge of the use of tools, for the construction 
of a vessel, so gigantic in size as the ark, 
would require these. The language of the 
original would also imply that some means 
had been devised for transmitting light to the 
interior of this vast structure, the word trans- 
lated windows, implying the ideas of brilliancy 
and transparency; this may have been, and 
probably was, some membranous substance, or 
possibly mica, but its use indicated a very 
considerable advance from the savage state. 
Nor can we suppose that the antediluvians, 
and especially the descendants of Seth, lacked 
religious culture. 

The distinction made in regard to the sacri- 
fices of Cain and Abel, in itself implies a 
somewhat extended course of religious in- 
struction. The offering of the lamb indicated 
evidently the knowledge of its typical charac- 
ter, and involved the idea of expiatory sacri- 
fice. The high religious character of Enoch 
could not have been attained by special reve- 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 29 

lation solely ; and the recollections of the lost 
Paradise, and of intercourse with angelic be- 
ings, might well have been communicated to 
him by Adam, who was his cotemporary dur- 
ing the greater part of his life. Nor do the 
gigantic crimes which led to the destruction 
of the antediluvian world, imply necessarily a 
want of intellectual culture, for analogy shows 
that, in all ages of the world, high intellectual 
attainment, when unrestrained by moral mo- 
tives, has been productive of the grossest 
crimes. 

Passing by, however, any further considera- 
tion of the mental condition of the races prior 
to the jflood, we come to post-diluvian times, 
concerning which we have more definite infor- 
mation. The descendants of Noah, settling, 
at first, on the f(3rtile plains lying between the 
Euphrates and Tigris, in the course of a few 
centuries sent forth colonies, to India, to 
China and perhaps Japan, and to Egypt and 
Ethiopia. Some of these colonies, in process 
of time, outstripped the parent stock in intel- 
lectual progress. Recent discoveries, how- 



30 HISTORY AND 

ever, demonstrate that, at a very early period, 
the Assyrians and Babylonians — who, if not 
themselves the parent stock, were in constant 
communication with the descendants of those 
who remained on the plains of Shinar — had a 
wiit+eri language, and understood many of the 
arts and sciences. 

Certain conditions seem to have been neces- 
sary to any considerable intellectual progress 
among the early nations of the world, and by 
a knowledge of the existence or non-existence 
of these, it is comparatively easy to determine 
whether any nation had, or had not, emerged 
from barbarism. Where the soil was highly 
fertile, and food abundant, and either from 
conquest, or as a result of famine, as in Egypt, 
the lands were owned by the king and his im- 
mediate associates or nobles, thus forming a 
higher class in society, possessing the power 
ofi governing and controlling the great mass 
of the population, the governing class would 
usually advance in civilization and intellectual 
culture. This would certainly be the case, if, 
from their location, they were not addicted to 



PEOGEESS OF EDUCATION. 31 

war, and if, moreover, they had established a 
system of religion, which conferred special 
privileges on the nobles and priests. 

Historians have usually considered the in- 
habitants of India as by far the most highly 
educated of all the early nations, and probably 
justly, since in their case all these circum- 
stances coincided to give them the opportu- 
nity for mental development. The fertility of 
their soil was such as to encourage the most 
rapid increase of population. From the ear- 
liest period the lands were considered the 
property of the higher classes ; desolating 
wars were, in their early history, of rare 
occurrence, and their religious system, which, 
in itself, exhibited the marks of extraordinary 
genius, divided the people into castes, of 
which the lowest or laboring caste (the 
Sudras), comprising the great mass of the peo- 
ple, were consigned to the lowest degradation, 
and the most abject servitude to those above 
them. Still, degraded as these were, there 
was a class below them, the Pariahs or out- 
casts, who were cut oif from the sympathies of 



32 HISTOEY AND 

their kind, and to look upon whom entailed 
ceremonial defilement. 

The three upper castes, comprising the 
Brahmins, or priestly order, the warriors, and 
the commercial or mercantile class, were al- 
lowed privileges of education, to which it wa? 
sacrilege for the Sudras, or laboring class, to 
aspire — but, even in their case, the education 
was esoteric and exoteric ; and while all were 
admitted to exoteric privileges, including the 
study of language, and some rudiments of 
science, poetry, the popular religious doc- 
trines, philosophy, history, astronomy, juris- 
prudence, and some slight medical knowledge, 
the Brahmins alone were admitted to the eso- 
teric studies, which included the higher my- 
thology, and in some cases the mysteries of 
their most sacred shrines, mathematics, and 
astrology. 

It is not to be supposed, however, that 
these studies were all taught in the earliest 
periods of their history, or that they ap- 
proached in extent or accuracy to the sciences 
we call by the same names. Their cpsmogony 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 33 

was absurd and childish, their history mostly 
fabulous, their astronomy confined to some 
slight knowledge of the movements of the 
heavenly bodies. But even this education, 
meager as it was, was withheld, most carefully, 
from the great mass of the people : if the 
Sudra, longing for instruction, dared to listen 
to the reading of the sacred books, in which 
all the science of the time was concentrated, 
burning oil was to be poured into his ears ; if 
he attempted to commit the words to memory, 
he was to be put to death, and the Brahmin 
who should attempt to teach him was threat- 
ened with perdition. These Sudras are esti- 
mated by Wai'd as comprising three-fourths 
of the Hindoo people. 

Strict as these laws were in prohibiting the 
instruction of the lowest caste, they were not 
less strict in defining the position of woman — 
a position, if possible, more degrading than 
that of the Sudra. It was a terrible disgrace 
for a woman to have learned to read, and the 
avowal of that knowledge was sufficient to 
class her with the most abandoned of her sex. 



34 HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 

Her duties and attainments were only such as 
would conduce to the mere physical comfort 
of her lord and master ; and when he died, 
cruelly as he might have treated her, custom 
required that she should sacrifice her life for 
him, on the funeral pile, especially if he were 
a Brahmin. 



CHAPTEK II. 

Education in Egj'pt and Ethiopia. — Caste. — Instruction exoteric and 
esoteric. — Females of the higher castes educated. — Education con- 
fined to the higher castes. — The masses degraded and oppressed. 
— Egypt the seat of the highest learning at a later period. — Edu- 
cation among the Chinese. — Schools. — System of instruction. — Edu- 
cation a necessary qualification for high official station. — Literary 
honors and degrees. — Much of this education only intended to de- 
velop the memory. — Chinese keys, for examinations. 

Let us turn next to Egypt and Ethiopia, or, 
as it is called in modern times, Abyssinia. 
We find here the system of education and of 
religion bearing so strong a resemblance (the 
result probably of their common origin, and 
similar circumstances) to that of India, that 
many writers have supposed Egypt to have 
been settled by an Indian colony. Aside, 
however, from the improbability of a colony 
having come from a region so remote, there 
were differences in their religious and educa- 
tional systems, sufficiently marked to preclude 
such a theory. 

The division of caste existed among the 



36 HISTORY AND 

Egyptians, and there were three of the privi- 
leged classes — priests, warriors, and profes- 
sional men, including judges, architects, wri- 
ters, and perhaps also physicians. The priests 
held the real power of the nation in their 
hands, though the monarch was generally 
chosen from the warrior class. Upon these 
three classes was bestowed most of the educa- 
tion of the country, an education which, like 
that of India, was exoteric and esoteric; the 
former including a knowledge of the demotic 
or common mode of writing (while the hiero- 
glyphic, or sacred, was confined to the priestly 
class alone), geometry, and mensuration of 
land — both sciences rendered necessary by the 
frequent changes induced by the overflowing 
of the Nile ; arithmetic, astronomy, chemistry, 
in which they were more proficient than any 
other of the nations of antiquity ; architecture, 
sculpture, painting, music, and, where they 
designed practicing it, a system of medicine. 
The abacus^ a kind of numeral frame, in which 
stones were used for arithmetical processes, 
was in common use. 



PE0GKES8 OF EDUCATION. 37 

The children of the priests were also in- 
structed in the sacred mysteries and in the 
higher mathematics, and made familiar with 
the hieroglyphic language, and the sciences 
and mysteries concealed in its literature. The 
female children of the higher classes, and par- 
ticularly of the priests, were allowed to acquire 
an education, and many of them availed them- 
selves of the opportunity. The children of 
the royal family Avere carefully instructed, and 
were only allowed to have as companions the 
most intelligent of the youth of the priestly 
class. 

The priests, as the instructors of the nation, 
were required to lead an abstemious and vir- 
tuous life, were allowed to have but one wife, 
and were forbidden all those articles of food 
which would make them gross or indolent. 
The same regimen was observed with their 
pupils. The plainest fare, and the hardest of 
beds, were the portion of the youth who were 
acquiring an education. The lands of the 
country were all held by the privileged castes. 

The lower orders, comprising the artificers, 



38 HISTORY AND 

the agriculturists, and tlie herdsmen, except 
the swineherds (who constituted a Pariah 
class, and were forbidden education, or the 
privilege of visiting the temples), were allowed 
but little education, and that little was usually 
communicated by their parents, or near rela- 
tives. They were not cut off, like the Sudras 
in India, from all instruction, but were gener- 
ally taught (both males and females) reading 
the demotic character and arithmetic, as neces- 
sary for the purposes of trade, in which the 
women engaged oftener than the men; they 
were also instructed in the art, trade, or busi- 
ness which their parents had followed, and 
which they were expected to practice. If agri- 
culturists, they were obliged to pay one-fourth 
of the produce of their land to the proprietors 
of the soil, who were usually either members 
of the reigning family or of the priestly caste. 
During the reign of the Shepherd Kings and 
the Pyramid builders, the mass of the people 
were in the most abject condition, many hun- 
dreds of thousands of them being compelled 
to undergo the severest hardships, in the 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 39 

erection of the pyramids ; but subsequently 
their condition was much ameliorated. 

At a later period in the history of Egypt, 
when the Greek civilization, which originated 
in Egypt, but had greatly improved and ad- 
vanced under the wise measures of the Greek 
philosophers and law-givers, was reintroduced 
there, by Alexander the Great and his succes- 
sors, Alexandi'ia and the other cities of the 
Delta became as renowned for their schools of 
philosophy and science, as Thebes, Memphis, 
and Heliopolis had been, in earlier times, for 
the schools of the priests. The dynasty of the 
Ptolemies was renowned for its devotion to 
science and literature, and the vast libraries of 
the Bruchion and the Serapeum at Alexandria, 
were the most remarkable monuments of the 
learning of the period. 

The Chinese and Japanese deserve a passing 
notice for their early systems of education. 
The exact period at which these nations 
emerged from barbarism can not be ascer- 
tained, for the traditions of a remote antiquity 
are always mingled with fable ; but that it 



40 HISTORY AND 

could hardly have been much later than the 
intellectual development of the Hindoo and 
Egyptian nations seems evident. The most 
renowned sage of the Chinese, Con-fut-see, 
who flourished about 550 b. c, expressly dis- 
claims having originated any of the views he 
promulgated ; he had only, he said, attempted 
to revive the doctrines of the ancient sages of 
the nation, which in the long lapse of ages 
had fallen into desuetude. The regulations in 
regard to education, which he thus resusci- 
tated, and which were practiced in their spirit 
for many years, as they now are in form, were 
in many respects admirable, and greatly in 
advance of those of the other nations at that 
early period. 

The course of instruction, intended for boys 
of all classes, was commenced in the family at 
an early age ; they were taught to reverence 
their parents and ancestors, to repeat certain 
precepts of morality, and to commit some 
extracts from the Chi-King and other ancient 
books to memory; they were also taught to 
count, up to 10,000, and instructed in the ele- 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 41 

ments of grammar. At the age of five or six 
years, they were sent to school. Here they 
were required to make, on entering, their 
obeisance, first to the holy Con-fut-see, or be- 
fore his time to some earlier sage, and next, to 
their teacher. This done, the lessons of the 
day were to be studied. These consisted to a 
great extent of memoritic exercises, chirogra- 
phy, chanting odes from the Chi-King or other 
text-books, narration and explanation of his- 
torical events, and some further instruction in 
arithmetic. Moral instruction was carefully 
mingled with intellectual, and a strict, though 
not cruel, discipline maintained. 

On returning home, they were required to 
salute, first, the domestic spirits, then their 
ancestors, and afterward their parents and 
relatives, and any strangers who might be 
present. The course of instruction, where the 
attendance was constant, and the child studi- 
ous, might be completed in three years, but it 
was usually prolonged beyond this. These 
schools seem not to have been supported by 
the general government, but by the local 



42 HISTORY AND 

autliorities. Female children were not ad- 
mitted to them, but they were very generally 
taught to read, write, and sing. A higher 
course of instruction was provided by the 
government for the children of the nobles 
and wealthier classes, as well as for those of 
marked promise in the ordinary schools. 

In no nation of ancient or modern times, 
with possibly the exception of Prussia, has 
education been the means of official promotion 
as much as among the Chinese. In each con- 
siderable city, there was a seminary of high 
grade, intended for the instruction of young 
men who wished to qualify themselves for 
official stations. The candidates for admission 
into these schools, were obliged to pass an 
examination conducted by the governor of the 
city, and after attendance upon the seminary 
they were again examined by the governor of 
a city of the first magnitude ; when, if able to 
pass, they were permitted to enter the impe- 
rial college at Pekin, and remained for three 
years, when they could, by passing a further 
examination, receive an appointment to some 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 43 

inferior office. But a very small proportion 
of those who offered themselves were able to 
pass the very strict examination. 

A mandarin of high rank was every year 
deputed to hold examinations, in the larger 
cities, of those who aspired to the first degree 
in the arts, called by the Chinese Liroutsay. 
From each company of four hundred candi- 
dates, fifteen were selected who passed the 
best examination, after ten trials, on whom the 
degree was conferred. This degree was ac- 
companied with some civil privileges, one of 
the most considerable of which was, exemption 
from chastisement with the bamboo. Those 
who had attained to this degree, were allowed 
to compete at the triennial examination, at 
Pekin, for the higher degree, and if they 
succeeded in passing the severe and repeated 
examinations, received it, and the following 
year passed, if they chose, a third examination, 
at the capital, on which, if successful, they 
received the degree of Tsin-tse, which answers 
to our Doctor of Laws. The recipient of this 
title was eligible to the most important offices, 



44 HISTOKY OF EDUCATION. 

and could enjoy, at the pleasure of the Em- 
peror, the title of Han-Lin, the highest of all 
literary titles. 

The investigations of recent travelers and 
missionaries, however, prove, that a very large 
portion of the studies on which the Chinese 
lay so much stress, consisted of mere repeti- 
tions of long lists of names, or of works, whose 
meaning was seldom comprehended by the 
student. The mathematical sciences, beyond 
the simple rules of arithmetic, received but 
little attention, and no language except Chi- 
nese was studied, nor had they made much 
progress in the physical sciences. Keys, or 
answers to the questions usually propounded, 
prepared on small slips of paper, were also 
frequently procured by the candidates. A 
specimen of these is now in the library of 
Yale College. 



CHAPTER III. 

The Japanese. — Their scientific discoveries. — Education of prostitutes. 
— Ancient Babylonians and Assyrians. — Evidence of their educa- 
tional condition afforded by recent discoveries. — Ancient Persians. 
— Parsees or Eire Worshipers. — Magi. — Their position. — Xeno- 
phon's account of education in the time of Cyrus. — The four classes. 
— This education confined to those possessing some property. — Fe- 
male degradation. — Little accomplished for education by Zartusht or 
Zoroaster. 

The Japanese seem to have had a system of 
education superior to the Chinese, pursuing a 
wider and more liberal course of scientific 
studies, and acquiring the languages of some 
other nations. Their academies of science, as 
well as their professional schools, were quite 
respectable. From Commodore Perry's narra- 
tive, it appears that they understand the prep- 
aration of a kind of stereotype plates, from 
which their books are printed ; that they 
adopted, centuries ago, a decimal system of 
weights and measures, and that in many of the 
arts and sciences, requiring no inconsiderable 
chemical skill, they are proficient. 



46 HISTORY AND 

Females receive some education, and those 
who are destined to an abandoned life, of 
whom there are vast numbers, are usually well 
taught in the literature and poetry of the 
country, that they may thus be rendered more 
attractive. 

Of the early inhabitants of the plain of 
Shinar and the land lying between the Eu- 
phrates and Tigris, the Mesopotamia of the 
Scriptures, and the vast empires of Babylon 
and Assyria, our information is scanty, derived 
mainly from the Scripture record and the 
recent explorations of Layard, Rawlinson, Tay- 
lor, Loftus, and others. That they had at- 
tained, at a period seven or eight centuries 
after the flood, to a high degree of civilization, 
is evident from the remains which explorers 
have found there. Their monuments, their 
rooms, stairways, and tablets, all covered with 
inscriptions, in the cuneiform character, mostly 
historical ; their bank or treasury notes, found 
by Mr. Loftus, in the form of clay tablets; 
their complex mode of numeration, reckoning 
by tens and by sixties ; their skill in sculpture, 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 47 

in architecture, and in horticulture ; the ex- 
istence of a class of wise men or magi, selected 
for their profound attainments in chemistry, 
astronomy, astrology, and other mystic arts, 
all indicate a nation which had made very 
considerable advances in education. 

Yet we find, on the other hand, a religion 
of the most debasing and brutal character, 
pandering to the indulgence of every lust, and 
inciting to the most bloody and cruel sacri- 
fices; child-murder very generally practiced, 
human sacrifices offered to idols, and even 
parents casting their own children into the 
red-hot arms of the brazen statue of the Fire- 
God. From these and other circumstances, 
we can but derive the conclusion that educa- 
tion was confined to the few, and those of the 
highest rank, while the masses were unen- 
lightened. 

The data for determining the educational 
condition of the ancient Persians, are much 
more full and satisfactory. The Zand-Avesta, 
or sacred book of the Parsees, or Fire Wor- 
shipers, the descendants of the ancient Per- 



48 HISTORY AND 

sians, which is ascribed, though with somewhat 
doubtful probability, to Zartusht, the Zoroaster 
of the Greeks, contains the material for form- 
ing a tolerably accurate idea of the early 
education of that nation. The descendants of 
Elam, the son of Shem, who were the earliest 
inhabitants of Persia, seem to have been a 
simple pastoral people, who had retained, in 
greater purity than most of the adjacent 
nations, the religious principles handed down 
to them by their ancestor, but possessing little 
intellectual culture. 

In the lapse of ages, at a period cotempo- 
rary with that of the patriarch Job, the Tza- 
beans, acknowledged idolaters and polytheists, 
attained the ascendency over the simple de- 
scendants of Elam, who had hitherto reared no 
idols, but regarded with reverence the sun, as 
the emblem of Divinity, the air, the earth, and 
the water as the means by which the power of 
the Divinity was displayed ; • in their train 
followed the Magi, a body of wise men who 
probably originated in Chaldea, and who for 
ages ruled the Persians, by the force of their 



PEOGEESS OF EDUCATION. 49 

intellect aloue. They abolislied the worship 
of idols, but retained the use of fire as the 
only symbol of deity. With intellects quick- 
ened by then.' active exercise, they became 
the inventors, the discoverers, the men of sci- 
ence of the nation, in which they were never- 
theless foreigners and strangers. Debarred, 
by the jealousy of the people, from the throne 
or from high office, as well as from the marts 
of trade, they yet managed to be for ages the 
governing power of the country. 

The king, though professedly an autocrat, 
was yet completely under their sway. Them- 
selves skilled in the arts and sciences of their 
day, beyond any other of the people of the 
East, they carefully retained in their own 
order, the secrets by which they had gained 
and maintained their power, yet directed the 
education of the masses, so as to qualify them 
for deeds of warlike prowess, and for such 
civil duties and artisan pursuits as they chose 
to commit to them. 

In physical training, they seem to have 
excelled all the other oriental nations ; allow- 



50 HISTOEY AND 

ing even to the future warriors but a meagre 
fare, and requiring of them a gymnastic disci- 
pline, which made them, at that period, very 
formidable ; they required of all classes the 
strictest adherence to truth, and reckoned 
chastity and purity of soul among the highest 
virtues. The intellectual culture they allowed 
was but trifling, except to those who were to 
be physicians ; these were taught that portion 
of the sciences which pertained to their pro- 
fession, and were exhorted to practice the 
utmost care and caution in the art of healing. 

At the time of Cyrus, and after his conquest 
of Babylon, the religion and the luxurious 
habits of the Babylonians were introduced, 
greatly to the injury and degradation of the 
Persians; but the picture which Xenophon 
draws of the Persian system of education, 
during the youth of Cyrus, is interesting. 

The whole population (except, it would 
seem, the magi themselves and the poorer 
classes), were divided into four orders, ac- 
cording to their age: 1st, the boys under IT; 
2d, the Ephebi, or youths from 17 to 27 years 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 51 

of age; 3d, the mature men firom 27 to 52; 
4th, the old men above 52 years of age. To 
each of these their proper apartments were 
assigned in the eXevdepa ayopa or public place 
of each town, far removed from the shops and 
markets. The boys, who commenced their 
training at the age of six years, lodged at 
home, and brought thence their meagre fare 
of bread and water-cresses, and a cup to draw 
water from the river, for their drink ; they 
were taught equitation, the use of the bow 
and the javelin, and the importance of a 
truthful, noble, and courageous character ; 
they were also taught the administration of 
justice, by the trial of any one of their own 
number who was in fault, by his peers; in- 
gratitude, they were instructed, was the most 
heinous of crimes, and merited the severest of 
punishments. The young men (e07?/3oi) lodged 
in the public apartments, were trained to 
military exercises, and were permitted, in 
turn, to accompany the king and nobles in 
hunting, but were restricted to half their usual 
fare, meagre as it was, while absent on their 



52 HISTORY AND 

hunting expeditions ; to which, however, they 
were permitted to add a portion of any game 
they might kill. They were also exercised in 
various public games. In case of war they 
formed a portion of the military force; the 
men of mature age constituted the reliable 
army of the country, and though engaged 
only a portion of the time in actual service, 
must, at all times, be ready to be called out. 
They did not, like the young men, carry the 
bow and javelin, but were clad in heavy 
armor, and bore a sword. The magistrates 
were selected from this class. The old men 
did not render military service, except in case 
of the invasion of their country, but remained 
at home and engaged in civil matters, forming 
a kind of jury for the administration of justice. 
The privilege of this public instruction and 
training was only allowed to the sons of those 
who were able, from their wealth, to dispense 
with the services of their children. For the 
sons of the poor there was no education, ex- 
cept such as they might obtain at home. 
Female education was utterly neglected; the 



PKOGKESS OF EDUCATION. 53 

wife was the slave of her husband, and eveiy 
morning must kneel at his feet, and ask, nine 
times, the question, "What do you wish that 
I should do ?" and having received his reply, 
bowing humbly, she must withdraw and obey 
his commands. 

The advent of Zartusht, or Zoroaster, the 
great Persian reformer, in the reign of Darius 
Hystaspes, was marked by a temporary reform 
of their religious system, which, under the in- 
fluence of Babylonian manners, had sunk into 
licentiousness ; but he appears, unlike Con-fut- 
see and Meng-tsee, the Chinese philosophers, 
to have attempted nothing in the way of 
education. 



PKOGEESS OF EDUCATION. 65 



CHAPTEK lY. 

The Hebrews. — Beauty of their literature. — Evidence it affords of 
extensive acquaintance with natural science. — Instruction among^ 
the higher classes. — Learning of Solomon and some of his associates. 
— Education mostly confined to the family. — No schools, properly 
so called, among them, till near the Christian era. — Schools of the 
Kabbins. 

The Hebrews or Israelites next deserve our 
attention. Not naturally superior in intellec- 
tual ability to the nations around them, and 
for some centuries, owing to their pastoral and 
agricultural pursuits, possessing fewer oppor- 
tunities of culture than the Egyptians and 
Babylonians, some of the race, nevertheless, 
attained to a remarkable degree of literary 
and scientific eminence. No literature of 
ancient times compares, for beauty or gran- 
deur, with the Psalms, the book of Job, and 
portions of the prophetic books. 

Solomon, though educated entirely in his 
own kingdom, was regarded by neighboring, 
and even remote nations, as a prodigy of 



V 



56 HISTOEY AND 

learning. Several of the books of the Old 
Testament, and particularly Job, Psalms, and 
Proverbs, contain allusions which indicate a 
knowledge of science and the useful arts, 
greatly in advance of that possessed by adja- 
cent nations. 

The priestly class, as such, does not how- 
ever seem to have possessed either the educa- 
tion or the influence which they had attained 
in Egypt or India. The wealthier classes 
cultivated science, and their children were 
taught by hired instructors ; thus we find that 
the prophet Nathan, and Jehiel ben Hachmoni, 
were the governors or instructors of the sons 
of David. At the period of Solomon's acces- 
sion to the throne, learning flourished more 
than at any previous, and perhaps more than 
at any subsequent period of the Israelitish 
history. In 1 Kings, iv. 31, we find the 
names of several eminent scholars of that time, 
viz. : " Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman (possi- 
bly the eminent singer, so often referred to 
in the Psalms), Chalcol and Darda, the sons of 
Mahol." 



PEOGKESS OF EDUCATION, 57 

Education among the Hebrews was not 
national, in the same sense as that of the 
Persians, or the Spartans ; but rather con-^ 
ducted in the family, and, with the exception 
of the wealthier classes, seems to have been 
rather moral and aesthetic, than intellectual. 
Reading was not generally taught, at least in 
the earlier ages of their history ; but the prin- 
ciples of the moral, and, to some extent, those 
of ih%* ceremonial law, were communicated 
with great care and particularity from father 
to son. Obedience to parents was considered 
indispensable, while continued disobedience 
was punished by the death-penalty, as was 
also dissolute conduct on the part of the 
young. The use of the rod, by parents, to 
control and subdue refractory children, was 
not only allowed, but recommended ; the his- 
tory of the nation, with its miracles, and its 
fearful warnings, was very generally taught; 
and instrumental music, chanting, and improv- 
isation, as well as dancing, which constituted 
a feature of their, usual worship, formed a part 
of the course of instruction, with both sexes. 



58 HISTOEY AND 

Architecture, sculpture, embroidery, and en- 
graving, or chasing of the precious metals and 
gems, were also carried to a high degree of 
perfection. 

The condition of woman, though low in the 
social scale, was still much higher than that 
of the surrounding nations; and in the later 
periods of their history, polygamy was entirely 
abandoned. 

Unless we regard what are called b^Tewish 
writers the schools of the prophets (for the 
early Hebrew has no term answering to our 
word school), as places of instruction, there 
was nothing like a public place of instruction 
in Palestine. That sacred chanting was prac- 
ticed in their assemblies, and accompanied 
with the use of musical instruments, we know ; 
that, as some writers conjecture, reading, 
writing, poetry, and the elements of philoso- 
phy and medicine were taught there, is less 
certain. 

Near the commencement of the Christian 
era, and for a period of four or five hundred 
years after, there were schools, in Palestine 



PKOGRESS OF EDUCATION. 69 

and elsewhere, taught by the Rabbins, in 
which the instruction was confined to the 
ilaws of Moses, and the Rabbinical commenta- 
ries thereon, the Mischna, the Thora, and the 
Gemara — the larger portion of which the pu- 
pils were required to commit to memory. 
These commentaries were, for the most part, 
occupied with the most absurd and silly spec- 
ulation concerning the sacred text, and their 



.ons ' 
-s^wa 



study^as an injury rather than a benefit to 
the pupils. 

We find nowhere any evidence that mathe- 
matics, beyond the mere rudiments of arith- 
metic, were taught among the Hebrews ; and 
in their knowledge of astronomy they were 
far behind the Egyptians, the Babylonians, 
and the Greeks. Their men of learning must 
have cultivated some departments of physical 
science, for we are told of Solomon, 1 Kings, 
iv. 33, that "he spake of trees, from the cedar- 
tree that is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop 
that springeth out of the wall ; he spake also 
of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, 
and of fishes." We find evidence also in the 



L- 



60 HISTOEY OF EDUCATION. 

Psalms, the Proverbs, and the book of Job, of 
critical research in the mineral as well as the 
vegetable and animal world. 



CHAPTER Y. 

The Greeks. — Influence of their systems of education on other nations, 
— The Homeric period. — Ulysses, Achilles, and Patroclus. — The 
period of the Lawgivers. — Lycuegus. — Brief biographical sketch. 
— The Spartan system. — More limited in its application than gener- 
ally supposed. — Solon. — Peculiarities of his system. — Instruction 
confined to the higher classes, and forbidden to slaves and women, 
except courtesans. — Pythagoras. — His extensive travels. — The phi- 
losophic character of his instnactions. — His course exoteric and 
esoteric. — General view of his system. — Its exemplification in some 
of his followers. 

We come next to speak of tlie educational 
systems of a people whose influence is felt on 
the intellects of all civilized nations, even to 
the present day. Greece has perhaps exerted 
more sway, by her literature, over the minds 
of men in the two thousand years since her 
decadence, than in the ages when, in intel- 
lectual culture and in physical bravery, she 
stood first among the nations. 

Her educational condition may perhaps be 
better understood, by a brief review of it at 
four periods. The Homeric period^ or, as it is 
usually called, the heroic age, has so much of 



62 HISTORY AND 

fable mixed with fact in its traditions, that it 
is only by incidental allusions in Homer and 
Hesiod, that we can discover what was the 
real intellectual condition of the people. 
There would seem to have been little answer- 
ing to our notion of a school, existing during 
this period, unless the gatherings for chanting 
the Orphic hymns and other ascriptions of 
praise to the gods can be so regarded. 

The art of "healing was taught by the 
Asclepiades, and there were also schools of 
medicine (so called) at Crotona, a Greek 
colony in Italy, at Cneidus in Crete, and at 
Rhodes ; but the medical knowledge was 
scanty, and mostly confined to hygienic pre- 
cepts. The education must have been mostly 
domestic, and probably did not include a 
knowledge of reading, as it is doubtful if 
letters were then known. Severe physical 
training, the government of the passions, 
knowledge of the world and of men, and rev- 
erence for the gods, seem to have been the 
principal subjects of instruction. 

Natural science had made some progress 



PEOGRESS OF EDUCATION. 63 

among a people so inquiring as the Greeks, 
and they had learned to recognize some of the 
heavenly bodies which glittered in their azure 
skies. Ulysses, who seems to have been 
Homer's ideal of a wise man, has drawn his 
knowledge from observation and experience. 

Achilles and Patroclus had a special in- 
structor or tutor ; Hector's education, however 
attained, was such as to make him a model of 
noble manly valor, and of domestic virtue. 
The education of women was not wholly neg- 
lected. They were skilled in household duties, 
in embroidery ; and some of them, like Penel- 
ope, Arete, and Nausikaa, were so intelligent 
as to fascinate, by their conversation, the 
heroes of their time. 

Leaving this mythic age, we come to a 
period when history, though still occasionally 
beclouded by fable, gives us more light. The 
period of Lycurgus, of Solon, and of Pythago- 
ras, embracing more than 250 years of Grecian 
history, viz. : from 776 b. c, to 520 b. c, may 
be regarded as the second stage of education 
in Greece. 



64: HISTORY AND 

Tlie exact date of the birth of Lycurgiis, as 
well as many facts in his history, are matters 
of uncertainty. The best accredited narratives 
make him a descendant of the Heraclidae, the 
royal family of Sparta. He saved the king- 
dom for his infant nephew Charilaus, against 
the wiles of the queen-regent ; and having, in 
consequence, incurred her enmity, he absented 
himself for many years, studying in foreign 
lands +he laws and systems of government of 
the most civilized nations. At length, he re- 
turned, and found the State in confusion, and 
all parties soliciting his aid and counsel. Con- 
sulting the Delphic oracle, and receiving -«, 
favorable reply, he at once commenced, with 
the approbation of the king, a reform in the 
government. He issued a set of ordinances 
called BJietra, by which he effected a total 
revolution in the political and military organi- 
zation of the people, and in their social and 
domestic life. 

The details of these ordinances it does not 
belong to our plan to give, except so far as 
they relate to education. It was the central 



PKOGEESS OF EDUCATION. 65 

idea of his system of education, that the child 
was the property, not of its parents, but of the 
State. The officers of the State must inspect 
it at its birth, and if sickly, or deformed, it 
was not permitted to live. 

It was consigned to its parents, till its sev- 
enth year, to be brought up for the State ; at 
that age, it was placed under the care of 
teachers, appointed by the government, fed 
on the most scanty and meager fare, to which, 
however, what could be obtained by hunting, 
and by theft, was added — if the theft was 
discovered it was severely punished. The 
physical instruction consisted of gymnastic 
exercises, sham fights, wrestling, and annual 
scourging, under which it was discreditable to 
utter any complaint, and many died under the 
scourge. The intellectual culture was very 
slight, consisting mainly in some rudimentary 
knowledge of arithmetic, in the practice of 
brevity and condensation in the expression of 
their thoughts — whence our word laconic is 
derived — and in some slight knowledge of 
astronomy. The moral culture consisted in 



66 HISTORY AND 

the inculcation of truthfulness, the government 
of the passions, and reverence for the gods. 

Females received substantially the same 
education as males; the object being to pro- 
duce the most perfect and vigorous physical 
development : and hence the Spartan women 
were, in character and position, very much 
superior to the other women of Greece. This 
discipline was continued not only to manhood, 
but to middle age. It produced a nation of 
remarkable physical power and energy, war- 
like, and ready for any conflict ; but it ignored 
all refinement, all aesthetic culture, and all 
scientific attainment. 

The proportion of the Lacedemonian popu- 
lation subjected to this discipline, was, how- 
ever, much smaller than is generally supposed. 
The Spartans, though the dominant race, were 
by no means so numerous as the Penoeci, who 
formed the farming population ; or the Helots, 
who were, like the Russian serfs, in a condition 
of slavery, or rather villanage; — yet the sys- 
tem of discipline was confined to the Spartans, 
who numbered not more than 9000, and even 



PKOGEESS OF EDUCATION. 67 

these, unless able to furnish their proportion 
to the Syssitia, or public mess, were not ad- 
mitted to the privileges of the system. 

Solon (b. c. 638) was, like Lycurgus, a law- 
giver. He modified the severity of the pen- 
alties affixed to the violation of the laws of 
Athens, by his predecessor Draco ; relieved 
the poor from slavery for debt, and materially 
changed the legislation relative to debtor and 
creditor. The popularity acquired by these 
measures was so great that he was called upon, 
by the great body of the people, to draw up a 
new code for the State, which he undertook, 
after some deliberation. 

This code is mostly extant, and though 
there is nothing in it concerning education, 
yet the regulations existing at Athens, while 
the laws of Solon were in force, would seem 
to justify the assertions of later Greek writers, 
that he had made enactments on this subject 
also. 

The system of Athenian education recog- 
nized intellectual culture, as equally necessary 
with physical training. The State had an 



68 HISTOKY AND 

interest in the education of its youth ; and 
every citizen, under a severe penalty, was 
required to teach his son to read and to swim; 
he was also to teach him some occupation, and 
if he neglected to do this, the son was free 
from the obligation to support and care for 
him in his old age. But aside from these 
general enactments, there was a minutely 
detailed system of education prescribed for 
the children of Athenian citizens. Till their 
seventh year, they were under the care of 
their parents. At that age, they were sent 
to school, being accompanied' always by the 
naidayoyyog^ who was generally a faithful slave, 
or friend of the family. The school was sup- 
ported by the State, and its teachers were of 
two grades, the ypamiano-rit; or elementary 
teacher, who gave instruction in the alphabet, 
spelling, and writing; and the ypaii^iariKog or 
KpiTLKog^ who taught his pupils to commit and 
recite, or declaim, the finest passages of the 
Greek poets and historians, which he explained 
and criticised, and also gave instruction in 
poetical composition, music, eloquence, and 



PEOGRESS OF EDUCATION. 69 

the principles of the fine arts. Penmanship 
and a graceful elocution were studies to which 
especial attention was directed. 

Parents were allowed to direct the order in 
which their children should take up the dif- 
ferent studies. When the youth had arrived 
at manhood, he was taught, if he chose to 
study them, ethics, dialectics, politics, and 
mythology. Mathematics were not much 
taught at Athens, at least at this period. In 
this course of instruction, the children of the 
poor and the slaves were not allowed to par- 
ticipate, nor were female children allowed any 
instruction, except such as they might receive 
at home. 

The condition of the female sex, except the 
abandoned portion of it, at Athens was pitia- 
ble ; secluded from society and from intel- 
lectual improvement, their lives must have 
been gloomy, dull, and hopeless. To the 
courtesan, on the contrary, opportunities of 
education and culture were granted, and the 
learning and eloquence of some of these not 
only enabled them to rule the leaders of the 



70 HISTORY AND 

State, but gave tliem a reputation which has 
come down to our own times. 

Pythagoras, born at Samos 604 b. c, was 
the most accomplished scholar and profoundest 
thinker of his day. The pupil of Anaximan- 
der and Thales, he subsequently spent many 
years in Egypt and other Oriental countries, 
where he acquired the learning of the priests, 
and the sciences in which Egypt at that time 
was pre-eminent. Returning thence, he visited 
the States of Greece, familiarized himself with 
the systems of government and education of 
Lycurgus and Solon, and finally settled at 
Crotona in Italy, one of the principal cities 
of the Greek colony, then known as Magna 
Greecia. Here he was received with great 
honors, the people being more intelligent 
than those of most of the Greek cities ; and 
though he refused all direct participation in 
the government, yet, through his own influ- 
ence and that of a secret association of three 
hundred which he formed, he controlled and 
molded their laws and institutions. 

He was the first of the Greek philosophers 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. Yl 

who founded a school or sect, which survived 
him for several hundred years. Like that of 
the priests and philosophers of Egypt and 
India, his system of education was two-fold, 
exoteric and esoteric, but, unlike theirs, both 
were based on the same principle, and the 
latter was but the more perfect development 
of the former. No previous philosopher had 
attained to such wide, grand, and comprehen- 
sive views as those which he enunciated, and 
none had ever propagated them by similar 
means. 

With far greater learning, he yet resembled, 
in the vastness of his conceptions, his knowl- 
edge of human nature and its springs of 
action, and his power of controlling mind, 
Ignatius Loyola, more nearly than any man of 
ancient or modern times. The foundation of 
all science, in lys view, lay in the harmony of 
the universe, and though his conceptions of 
the order, harmony, and music of the heav- 
enly bodies seems to have been vague, yet it 
was sufficient to inspire his disciples with awe 
and interest. 



72 HISTOEY AND 

Man, he contended, was but the universe in 
epitome, and since the Kosmos was ruled by 
the laws of harmony, it was becoming that in 
the affairs of man, the llih'oJcosmos, there 
should be no discords. The attainment of 
this perfect harmony was the object of all 
education, and man could attain it by purifi- 
cation of the soul, by self-knowledge, and by 
devotion. 

His idea of purification implied, not only 
the complete regulation of the life, the sub- 
duing of the passions, and the performance of 
good deeds, but also involved his doctrine of 
metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls. 
In self-knowledge was imj)lied also a mastery 
of social knowledge, since society was but a 
larger self, and of the laws which govern the 
kosmos : and hence included science. Mathe- 
matics and music, in its comprehensive Grecian 
sense, as comprising not only melody, but 
poetical composition, the fine arts and elo- 
quence, were among the necessary aids to this 
self-knowledge, and profound reflection was 
indispensable. He I'egulated the diet and 



PKOGEESS OF EDUCATION. 73 

exercise of his pupils with the most scrupu 
lous care. Nor was he less observant of the 
morals and manners of his disciples ; chastity 
and purity of thought and language, courtesy, 
benevolence, and self-sacrificing friendship 
were earnestly inculcated. The friendship of 
Damon and Pythias, so celebrated in ancient 
times, was cemented under his instruction, for 
they were his pupils. 

His esoteric course, to which only his 
favorite disciples were admitted, though 
hedged in from the vulgar crowd by various 
rites and ceremonies, seems to have been only 
a more complete development of the exoteric 
course; extending the scientific training to 
a knowledge of astronomy, ethics, and the 
higher mathematics, and probably, also, to 
some departments of natural science. His 
instructions were not confined to his own sex, 
many of his female pupils afterward distin- 
guishing themselves as authors. 

4 



PROGEESS OF EDUCATION. 75 



CHAPTER YI. 

The Greeks contimied. — Socrates. — Eminently an educator. — His 
method. — The practical results more fully developed in the teach- 
ings of Plato. — The theories of education of the latter as developed 
in his "Republic," his "Sophistes," and other works. — Aristotle, 
the wisest of the Grecian teachers.— His " Natural History." — His 
"Politics." — Successors of Aristotle. — The schools of Athens and 
Alexandria. — Review of Greek education. 

Having thus exhibited the intellectual con- 
dition of Sparta, Athens, and Magna Graecia, 
at a period less than 600 years before the 
Christian era, a condition more advanced, 
perhaps, than that of the rest of Greece, let us 
take another view of it, somewhat more than 
a century later, in the times of Socrates and 
Plato. 

Socrates merits, perhaps more than any 
other man ,of ancient times, to be called an 
educator, in the literal sense of that term ; for 
it was the great business of his public life to 
draw out, or educe truth, by questionings and 
analogies. Born 469 b. c, of humble parent- 



76 HISTOEY AND 

age, rough and extremely unprepossessing in 
his appearance, and wearying the self-satisfied 
and aristocratic Athenians by the pertinacity 
of his questions, he yet exerted a more pow- 
erful influence on the intellect, not only of 
Greece, but of the world, than any man who 
had preceded him. 

He never assumed the badge of a teacher ; 
never gathered his disciples about him, to 
lecture to them, as did the other philosophers 
of Greece ; but always professing ignorance, 
made inquiries of any one, high or low, who 
would answer them, and always, in the end, 
discomfited them in argument by his dexter- 
ous questionings. Yet, though by his efforts 
the power of the Sophists, whose delusive 
theories had so long enchained the Greek 
intellect, was broken, and the foundations laid 
for a purer worship and a more earnest in- 
quiry after truth in religion and science insti- 
tuted, we shall find the practical results of his 
labors, in relation to education, more fully de- 
veloped in the career and writings of his 
disciple, Plato, than in what of tradition has 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 77 

descended to our times concerning his own 
teachings. 

Plato, born at Athens, 429 b. c, was a 
descendant of Solon and of Codrus. At the 
age of twenty he became a follower of Socra- 
tes, whose instruction he enjoyed for ten years. 
After the death of his friend and master, he 
traveled extensively, and subsequently gath- 
ered round him a body of disciples, to whom, 
in the gardens of Academia, he expounded 
the views and principles of his master, as 
well as those which his own grand and lofty 
intellect had wrought out. In his '■'■Republic^'' 
and in his '■'• Laws^''"' he lays down his theory 
of education, a theory probably never fully 
reduced to practice, but which exerted a 
powerful influence on his nation for cen- 
turies. 

During the eighteen or twenty years of his 
absence from Athens, he had visited Egypt 
and Persia, and studied attentively their sys- 
tems of education and religious culture; he 
had also mastered, in detail, the laws and 
institutions of Lycurgus at Sparta, and ob- 



78 HISTORY AND 

served the results of more than two hundred 
and fifty years' experience under them. 

We find traces of the effect of these studies, 
in his scheme of a republic. Like Lycurgus, 
he regarded the children as the property of 
the State, and even recommended a commu- 
nity of wives, that there might be no impedi- 
ment to the exercise of the parental power 
over them by the State, and that the physical 
beauty and vigor of the children might be 
increased. He opposed all education, except 
in their particular trades and in subjection to 
the laws, to the artisan and laboring classes ; 
while he would have the military class very 
thoroughly trained. This training he would 
have commenced as early as the third year, for 
he believed infancy the most important period 
of human life, inasmuch as the impressions 
then made were never effaced. 

Regarding a good teacher as one of the 
most essential conditions for the formation of 
good pupils, he lays down rules, in his '' So- 
phistes,'' for distinguishing between a good and 
a bad teacher; and he recommends to those 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 'TO 

in power to exercise the utmost scrutiny and 
care in the selection of instructors, who were 
to be paid by the State. Plato could not, 
with his Greek notions of physical training, 
avoid giving great prominence to gymnastic 
exercises as a means of education, but he 
abated much of the Spartan severity both of 
exercise and diet, still retaining, however, suf- 
ficient to maintain the body in health and 
vigor. 

To temper its tendency to make the man 
hard, harsh, and ferocious in his nature, he 
would have him pursue musical culture in 
connection with gymnastics. We have already 
explained the sense in which the Greeks used 
the word music, as implying all those studies 
which, in their mythology, were assigned to 
the care of the nine Muses. Plato seems, how- 
ever, to have laid more stress on music proper 
than any of his predecessors had done, and to 
have cultivated it to a higher degree of per- 
fection. 

For the intellectual culture of his pupils, he 
recommended the thorough study of arith- 



80 HISTORY AND 

metic, geometry, and astronomy ; and if they 
would attain to eminence, philosophy also, as 
the sublimest of all intellectual pursuits. He 
would not, of course, neglect rhetoric, decla- 
mation, and the art of poetical composition, 
nor the principles of taste, which were indis- 
pensable in Athenian society. Moral culture 
was also a subject of consideration with him, 
and he urges, in strong terms, the necessity of 
reverence for the gods, respect for parents, 
obedience to the laws, and chastity and purity 
of life. 

The "foremost man of all the Greeks," how- 
ever, in general learning, in genius, and in his 
devotion to education, was Aristotle. Born 
at Stageira, a city of Thrace, 384 b. c, of in- 
telligent and noble parentage, his father Ni- 
comachus being an eminent physician and 
author, and the friend of Amyntas II., king of 
Macedonia, the young Aristotle started in life 
with more external advantages than any of his 
predecessors, and his keen perceptions and 
vivacious temperament enabled him, under the 
genial training of his father, early to acquire 



PKOGRESS OF EDUCATION. 81 

knowledge. After liis father's death, which 
occurred while he was yet a child, he was 
instructed by one Proxenus, a friend of his 
father, then residing at Stageira. At the age 
of seventeen he repaired to Athens, drawn 
thither by the fame of its eminent teachers, 
and especially of Plato, then in the maturity 
of his great powers. 

About the time of his arrival there, Plato 
sailed for Sicily, where he remained for three 
years. Aristotle, nevertheless, improved this 
period, by studying under the eminent teach- 
ers still remaining at Athens ; and on Plato's 
return, he at once became his pupil. His 
mental activity caused Plato soon to distin- 
guish him as the mind (vovf) of his school, and 
of the many brilliant intellects gathered there 
from all the adjacent countries, no one seems 
seriously to have contested the palm with him. 
Fond of teaching, he probably had some pupils 
for a time in Athens before Philip of Macedon 
placed his son, afterward Alexander the Great, 
under his charge. For four years he labored 
zealously to make his illustrious pupil eminent 

4* 



82 HISTOEY AND 

in science, as he afterward became in arms; 
and the impress of his teachings was visible 
in many incidents of Alexander's subsequent 
career. 

He ever reverenced his instructor, and lav- 
ished on him abundant wealth and facilities 
for the prosecution of his favorite study of 
natural history. Released from his charge as 
tutor, by the death of Philip and the succession 
of Alexander to the throne of Macedon, Aris- 
totle returned to Athens, and there established 
a school, called the Lyceum, from its neighbor- 
hood to the temple of Apollo Lyceius. Here, 
for thirteen years, he taught two classes daily, 
walking in the garden or grove, and lecturing 
as he walked, whence he and his disciples 
received the name of Peripatetics. 

His morning lecture was addressed to the 
more advanced of his pupils, and treated of 
dialectics, physical science, and the more pro- 
found topics of philosophy ; his afternoon 
lectures or walks were addressed to a larger 
company, and in these he discussed political, 
ethical, and rhetorical questions. His vast 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 83 

learning brought to his school eminent men 
from every part of the then known world, and 
the influence of his philosophy has come down 
even to our own times, while the discoveries 
of our most eminent naturalists are constantly 
confirming the observations made by the 
Oreek philosopher 2200 years ago. 

His ^'■Politics''' includes a treatise on educa- 
tion, only a part of which is preserved. This 
work, unlike the Republic of Plato, is not a 
description of a theoretic State, but an elab- 
orate discussion of the principles of gov- 
ernment. 

He may be justly regarded as the first really 
scientific teacher of youth, and his educational 
essay is evidently a summary of his own obser- 
vation and experience. He extended, some- 
what, the topics of study, and though he 
enumerates but four principal branches as 
necessary — viz. : gymnastics, music, grammar, 
or the study of language, and the arts of 
design — it is evident that he included in 
these more than we now do. Geography, in 
which Thales and Anaximander had made 



84 HISTOEY AND 

some progress, under the plastic hands of 
Aristotle assumed the form of a science. 

Natural history, through his extensive ob- 
servations and his inductive reasoning, became 
a science of fair proportions. Logic he in- 
vented, and his use of the syllogism was the 
commencement of a new era in the art of 
reasoning. Mathematics he regarded as of 
great importance for a thorough education, 
and a knowledge of politics, or the science of 
government, as necessary to the intelligent 
citizen. He urged the right of woman to 
education, but asserted that the slaves should 
not be taught any thing beyond obedience to 
their masters. 

The influence of Aristotle's lectures and 
works upon his followers and their pupils, for 
many of them taught in public, led to a still 
greater enlargement of the bounds of science, 
and to the systemization of a complete course 
of instruction, known, some three centuries 
after his time, as the eynvKXia -nacSevfiara^ from 
whence comes our word encyclopedia. 

This "'circle of sciences" consisted, in the 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 85 

Alexandrian schools, at the commencement of 
the Christian era, of the seven liberal arts — 
grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, ge- 
ometry, astronomy, and music. But rhetoric 
was also cultivated aside from the other 
studies, 

Athens, from the time of Plato and Aris- 
totle, became the resort of those who sought a 
superior education, and though the morals and 
manners of its people greatly degenerated, and 
its professors of philosophy and science taught 
for the sake of fees, a practice which Socrates, 
Plato, and Aristotle denounced; and though 
they too often sought popularity by pandering 
to corrupt tastes, yet, for five or six centuries, 
it maintained its pre-eminence. 

About a hundred years after the death of 
Aristotle, Alexandria began to be its most 
formidable rival ; and during the sway of the 
Ptolemaic dynasty, the noble libraries and the 
high repute of the grammarians, or professors 
in its schools, attracted almost as many youth 
from abroad as Athens. The character of the 
teaching, in both cities, was far inferior to that 



86 HISTOEY AND 

of the time of Aristotle. The logic and dia- 
lectics which he taught, and which he intended 
as aids in the exercise of the reasoning facul- 
ties, had been perverted to the consideration 
of silly quibbles; and volumes were written 
and months of argument passed, in the discus- 
sion of questions which, when decided, added 
nothing to the sum of human knowledge. For 
five centuries no man stood forth among this 
host of philosophers and dialecticians, to make 
any valuable additions to science or to philos- 
ophy. 

In the review of Greek education, we find 
that it was, from the first, considered the affair 
of the State ; that, for the most part, the sys- 
tem of education was designed to fit men for 
military life, though, in the later periods, 
reference was also had to political life; that 
generally, women, except the most abandoned, 
were denied its privileges ; that it was only 
the children of the aristocracy, those who 
could live without labor, who received its 
advantages ; that artisans, laborers, and the 
serfs and slaves were rigorously forbidden all 



PEOGEESS OF EDUCATION. 87 

participation in it; that, in the earlier ages, 
the education was physical and moral, rather 
than intellectual, while, in the later ages, 
moral culture was neglected, and intellectual 
education usurped its place ; that the favorite 
studies of the Greeks were rather rhetoric, 
dialectics, ethics, metaphysics, and so much of 
the mathematics as would aid them in becom- 
ing skillful reasoners and ready debaters, than 
the pursuit of natural or high mathematical 
science ; that while they understood their own 
language well, they had no taste for linguistics 
in general, regarding other nations as barba- 
rians, and their languages as imperfect. 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 89 



CHAPTEK YII. 

The Romans.— Early education mainly moral and physical.— Intro- 
duction of Greek instruction. — Education under the Empire. — Ten- 
dencies of the Roman less intellectual than those of the Greek. 
— Female education not general. — Quintilian. — Varro. — The orphan 
schools of Antoninus Pius.— The Druids. — Little known of their 
system of education. 

The Romans seem never to have entertained 
the idea that it was the duty of the State to 
educate the children of its citizens. In the 
early periods of their history, education was 
entirely domestic, and the amount of intel- 
lectual culture was very scanty. The father 
possessed absolute power over his family, even 
to the taking of life ; but this power, though 
exercised with considerable severity and 
sternness, seems to have been seldom abused. 
The father was regarded with reverence and 
respect, seldom, perhaps, with very strong 
affection, for the Latin word ^j/eto^, which 
expressed the emotion of the dutiful child to 
his parent, can hardly be thought to imply 



90 HISTORY AND 

much of love. Physical training was not 
neglected, and the moral culture was probably 
of a higher character than that of any other 
nation, with the possible exception of the 
Hebrews. 

The ability to read and write were rare 
acquirements, and these, with perhaps some 
knowledge of arithmetic, were only imparted 
to a few of the children of patrician parents. 
The legend of Virginia relates that "she was 
going to her school in the tabernas of the 
forum," when the client of Appius Claudius 
seized her ; but as there is no other evidence 
of the existence of a school in the forum, and 
especially for girls, till several centuries later, 
we must consider this as an embellishment, 
added to the story by a later hand. 

That writing was but little known or prac- 
ticed, and that the early history of Rome was 
(except some brief annals which were burned 
by the Gauls, 390 b. c.) mostly transmitted by 
oral tradition, is distinctly testified by Livy. 
^It was not until the Romans had conquered 
/ the Italian cities settled by Greek colonies, 



PEOGRESS OF EDUCATION. 91 

such as Tarentum, Crotona, and Syracuse, that 
the literature, the philosophy, and the educa- 
tional systems of Greece began to exert an 
influence on them. 

After that period, Greek teachers and phi- 
, losophers came to Rome in crowds ; and, 
though Cato the Censor and others, dreading 
their influence, attempted to drive them from 
I the city, they had obtained too strong a foot- 
ihold to be dislodged. The Greek literature 
was adopted almost without modification, and 
no Roman scholar was ignorant of it. The 
philosophy was not so readily received, and 
but for the education of the young Romans in 
Athens, would hardly have established itself; 
for the Roman was harder, coarser, and less 
susceptible of esthetic culture than the 
Greek; he delighted more in blood, and less 
in beauty ; more in facts, and less in specula- 
tion ; more in the real, and less in the ideal. 
It was not, therefore, till the best traits of his 
character were lost, in the luxury and sensu- 
ality of the later years of the republic, that 
he began to take kindly to the rhetoric, the 



92 HISTOEY AND 

dialectics, and the philosophy of the Greeks, 
and, indeed, the descendants of the old Ro- 
mans never fairly mastered them. 

The distinguished teachers, as well as the 
celebrated writers, of Rome were, for the most 
part, either natives of the colonies or prov- 
inces, or freedmen, who had once been the 
slaves of the wealthy. Schools for instruction 
in grammar, arithmetic, geometry, and elocu- 
tion, existed in Rome for more than a hundred 
years before the Christian era, and some of 
the teachers attained eminence ; but these 
schools were attended only by the children 
of the wealthy, and the young men went to 
Athens, Rhodes, or Alexandria, to finish their 
education. 

The masses were not educated, or intelli- 
gent ; they took little interest in the dramatic 
representations which were translated from 
the Greek, and which possessed extraordinary 
merit ; if an author attempted to exhibit an 
original drama, he was persecuted and abused, 
until he abandoned the effort in disgust ; the 
only public exhibitions which attracted the 



PEOGEESS OF EDUCATION. 93 

attention and received the plaudits of the 
populace, were the pantomimes, whose prin- 
cipal recommendation was their indecency, 
and the gladiatorial shows, where cruelty was 
added to the indecency. 

A few of her eminent men distinguished 
themselves as orators, poets, and historians, 
and some of these, like Tacitus and Sallust, 
developed the power of the language for 
vigorous and condensed expression ; but most, 
like Cicero, Caesar, Yirgil, and Horace, betray, 
unconsciously perhaps, but yet clearly, that 
they are indebted to the Greek poets and 
orators for many of their thoughts, and even 
for their forms of expression. The later poets 
differ from the Greek poets, but only in the 
unblushing license and obscenity of their lan- 
guage, which would have rendered their 
writings highly offensive to the esthetic sense 
of the Greeks. 

In one particular, however, the Romans 
might justly claim superiority over the other 
nations of the world. Their architecture was 
wonderful for its solidity and grace, and they 



94 HISTOKY AND 

filled not Rome only, but the world, at least 
so much of it as they subdued and colonized, 
with their enduring structures. The traveler 
of to-day, Avhether he visit northern Africa, 
far on toward the confines of the desert, 
England, France, Spain, Germany, southern 
Russia, Turkey, or the cities of Asia Minor, 
Palestine, or Arabia, finds everywhere dwell- 
ings, castles, aqueducts, or bridges, which 
have defied alike the erosions of time, the 
shock of earthquakes, and the desolating 
progress of successive armies of invaders. 
The perfection and durability of these struc- 
tures necessarily imply a high degree of 
mathematical and geometrical knowledge, and 
hence indicates that the architects, if not the 
artisans, who erected them, must have been 
well-educated. 

The period between the commencement of 
the Christian era and the conversion of Con- 
stantine, during which Rome was yet pagan, 
though a period of moral degradation, was 
one in which literature and intellectual culture 
flourished, more than at any previous time, in 



PEOGRESS OF EDUCATION. 95 

the Roman Empire. Augustus and his min- 
ister Maecenas were patrons of literature and 
promoters of education. To the right of citi- 
zenship, which Julius Caesar had conferred on 
foreign grammarians and other teachers, as 
well as physicians, who settled at Rome, Au- 
gustus added their exoneration from public 
oJBfices and other occupations. 

During his administration, also, several new 
schools, of high repute, were established in the 
the provinces, to which young men flocked in 
great numbers; such were Mytilene, Massilia 
(now Marseilles), and Corduba in Spain. The 
first institution resembling a college, in the 
Roman Empire, was founded by Vespasian 
(a. d. 69-79), who appointed Quintilian a 
public professor of eloquence, giving him a 
salary from the public funds, and also em- 
ployed, with salaries, several other professors 
of rhetoric. 

What Vespasian originated, Adrian (a. d. 
117-138), carried out to completion; found- 
ing in the capital an institution, called the 
Athenseum, and appointing a corps of profes- 



96 HISTORY AND 

sors of grammar, as well as rhetoric, with 
respectable salaries. Antoninus Pius, his suc- 
cessor (a, d. 138-161), not only added a pro- 
fessorshijD of philosophy to the Athenaeum, but 
established a similar institution in the most 
important cities of the Empire. The course 
pursued by the professors was, according to 
the testimony of Suetonius, Gellius, Quintilian, 
and others, to expound the writings of Cicero 
and the poems of Virgil, Horace, Statius, &c., 
in the Latin language, and of the principal 
Greek authors in the Greek. The grammari- 
ans certified, at stated times, the progress 
made by their pupils, urging them forward 
by the influence of emulation, and still more 
by the use of the rod. 

Among the Roman writers on education, we 
may mention M. Terentius Varro, "the most 
learned man in Rome," and one of her most 
voluminous writers. He was born 116 b. c, 
and died about 27 b. c. Of his work, entitled 
" Cajpys^ aut cle liheris educandis^^ only a few 
fragments now remain. Cicero treats of edu- 
cation, incidentally, in his "i>e Officiis'' M. 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 97 

Fabius Quinctilianus, or, as he is usually called, 
Quintilian, the most celebrated rhetorician of 
his age (a. d. 42-120), also speaks, at length, 
of the existing systems of education, and sug- 
gests improvements, in the first book of his 
^'Institutio Oratoria^'' which is still extant. 

Antoninus Pius (a. d. 138-161) was the 
first Roman monarch, and probably the first 
pagan monarch, who ever established a school 
for orphans. At the death of his wife, Annia 
Faustina (a. d. 138), to whom, notwithstand- 
ing her reputed ill-conduct, he was tenderly 
attached, he established a school for orphan 
and foundling girls, whom he named ^''Puelloe 
Faustiniance.'''' The success of this seems to 
have incited him to establish similar schools 
for both sexes, which were called '■'■ Pueri et 
Puellce AlimentariV Five medals now in 
existence, of dates corresponding to 141, 149, 
151, 160, and 161, a. d., testify to the organi- 
zation of these schools in different cities. 

Several centuries before the Christian era, 
there existed in the British islands a form of 
civilization, and an intellectual and religious 



98 HISTORY AND 

culture, known as Druidism, bearing marks of 
foreign derivation, yet exerting a powerful 
influence on the people. It was apparently of 
Grecian or Oriental origin, as the educated 
classes used the Greek language, while its 
religious forms and ceremonies indicated an 
affinity with Egypt or India. But few reliable 
data of this religious system have been trans- 
mitted to our time, for the Roman culture and 
worship almost entirely effaced it from the 
memories of the people, and the introduction 
of new nations, Romans, Saxons, Danes, and 
Normans, have obliterated the little that re- 
mained. 

We know, however, that its chief seat was 
on the island of Mona, or Anglesey ; that the 
priestly and legislative power were held by 
the same persons ; that they gave instruction, 
usually, in the open air, and under the wide- 
spreading boughs of an oak (a tree which they 
held sacred), to the youth of the wealthier 
and priestly classes, in reading, writing, arith- 
metic, geography, the mysteries of nature, and 
the peculiar tenets of their religious system. 



PROGEESS OF EDUCATION. 99 

With these instructions something of mys- 
tery was always mingled ; many of them were 
never committed to writing; and there was, 
for those who were intended for the Druidical 
priesthood, an esoteric course, like the Brah- 
minical instruction of India. This Druidical 
system had also pervaded, to some extent, the 
north of Europe, though the daring and ad- 
venturous spirit, and the exuberance of animal 
life, in the Scandinavian races, had modified 
its traditions, and while they added to their 
fierceness, violence, and cruelty, had almost 
ignored their intellectual characteristics. 



CHAPTER YIII. 

Education among the Arabs and Saracens. — Period prior to Moham- 
med. — Influence of Mohammed. — The Ommiades and Abassides. 
— The translation of Aristotle. — Spain, the principal seat of Saracen 
learning. — Its extent. — Mexican provision for education. — The Cal- 
mecac. — Picture writing. — Their calendar. — The Council of Music 
and its duties. — Mexican poetry. — The Peruvians. — Their intellec- 
tual culture less extensive than the Mexican. — The Quipu, — The 
ballads of the haravecs. — Agriculture among the Peruvians. 

Before speaking of education as influenced 
by Christianity, we must give a brief account 
of its progress among the Arabs, under the 
sway of Mohammed and his successors; and 
also among, the Mexicans and Peruvians, 
where, as among the nations already noticed, 
it was not modified by the influence of 
Christianity. 

The Arab^, prior to the advent of Moham- 
med, were not distinguished for intellectual 
culture; those of them who dwelt in towns 
had attained to about the same amount of 
education with the early Hebrews ; those who 
were nomadic had even less ; the instruction 



102 HISTORY AND 

was almost wholly domestic, and mainly physi- 
cal and moral. 

Few among them could read, and fewer still 
could write ; yet the poetical element was 
highly developed, and the family, tribal, and 
national history were embalmed in a rude but 
impassioned poetry, which young and old had 
committed to memory ; every tribe, indeed 
almost every section of a tribe, had its bard, 
who was ever a welcome and honored guest, 
and for whom, even in times of hunger and 
privation, the best was always reserved ; these 
bards acted, in some sense, as the school- 
masters of the nation. The pilgrimages to 
Mecca, where the Kaaba, or sacred black 
stone (an aerolite, probably), which was fabled 
to have descended from heaven, rested, also 
had their share in the education of the people, 
bringing together, as they did, pilgrims from 
every part of Arabia, and from adjacent 
countries. 

The state of morals among the Arabs, at 
this period, was much higher than that of the 
nations around them. They, of all the Orien- 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 103 

tals, were monogamists, and though the social 
rank of woman was not so high as with us, it 
was higher than elsewhere in the east. They 
were, perhaps, idolaters, but their pantheon 
was small, and confined to the inferior deities ; 
and in their social character, hospitality, 
ardent friendship, a high sense of honor, and 
indomitable courage were marked traits. 

Mohammed, born about a. d. 570, and, after 
his fortieth year, professing to be divinely 
inspired, wrought a most wonderful change in 
the character of these wild descendants of 
Ishmael. Whether we regard him as an en- 
thusiast, a fanatic, or a deceiver, we can not 
fail to see that his system possessed many 
features wonderfully attractive to a people 
like the Arabs, and that once received by 
them as a divine revelation, it must necessarily 
modify their whole subsequent history. It is 
foreign to our purpose to consider the Koran 
in any other relation than that of its bearing 
upon education. 

We find Mohammed enjoining it as a sacred 
duty upoi his followers to read the Koran; 



lOi HISTORY AND 

the necessity and advantages (spiritual as well 
as temporal) of learning are prominent topics 
in it; yet the social position of woman was 
lowered, polygamy permitted and practiced 
by the prophet himself, and the relation of 
parent and child debased rather than honored. 
Idolatry was forbidden, but pilgrimages to 
Mecca and Medina, thenceforth to be sacred 
shrines, from their connection with the prophet, 
allowed and enjoined. 

A new impulse, a fresh start, was given to 
the Arabic mind, which made it for the next 
six centuries the leading intellect of the world. 
But though this wondrous intellectual advance- 
ment, in a people who had hitherto taken no 
prominent part in the world's civilization, re- 
sulted from the change effected by the intro- 
duction of his professed revelations, yet, in the 
subsequent mental development of that people, 
very little is due to Mohammed's influence. 
The first demonstration of the new religion 
was a bloody conflict ; for almost a century 
the Khalifs extended the empire of their faith 
by the sword, fighting as men always do who 



PEOGRESS OF EDUCATION. 105 

have a strong, earnest conviction, a tangible 
faith, to fight for, and conquering, of course. 

It was not till this warlike fervor had passed 
away, and the successors of the prophet saw 
the whole of Arabia, Palestine, Persia, a great 
part of India, Egypt, and northern Africa 
subjected to the faith of Islam, that they 
settled down quietly to the more intellectual 
development of their creed. 

The children were to be taught the Koran, 
and, as if by magic, thousands of schools were 
opened to instruct them in reading ; serious 
differences of opinion had arisen in relation to 
the proper interpretation of the sacred book, 
and schools of learning, whose ultimate object 
was to throw light upon the dark places in it, 
were organized. 

The profound investigations deemed neces- 
sary for this purpose led to the introduction of 
other sciences and to the study of the Greek 
writers, some of whose works had been trans- 
lated into the Syrian tongue by the Nestorians, 
and perhaps also into Arabic, in the fifth cen- 
tury; Aristotle began to be a familiar aiithor 



106 HISTORY AND 

with learned Saracens, and Arabic literature 
was enriched with numberless works in every 
department of science. 

Libraries were found to be indispensable, 
and the Ommiade and Abasside Khalifs, lovers 
and patrons of learning, collected at Bagdad, 
at Damascus, and other cities of the East, 
books in such quantities as seem to us, even 
with modern facilities for their multiplication, 
almost fabulous. 

In mathematics, they invented algebra; in 
medicine, they made greater progress than 
had been attained since the days of Hippoc- 
rates ; . in their researches in alchemy, they 
laid the foundations of chemical science ; in 
astronomy, they made greater discoveries in 
the starry heavens, in the planetary systems, 
and in the motions of the earth and the sun, 
than all who had gone before them. There is 
reason to believe that they were not ignorant 
of the use of the telescope, and even their 
astrological researches led to some important 
progress in astronomical science. To them 
are we indebted for bringing into use our 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 107 

admirable system of numerals ; and if, as some 
pretend, they received the first hint of it in 
India, they were certainly the first to dissemi- 
nate it through Europe. 

During the administration of Almansor, 
Haroun Al-Raschid, and Mamoun, grammati- 
cal studies, poetry, philosophy, jurisprudence, 
medicine, astronomy, mathematics, natural sci- 
ence, and magic were taught in their schools ; 
and besides the schools at Bagdad and Damas- 
cus, new ones were founded, and attained a 
high reputation, at Basra, Kufa, Aleppo, Bok- 
hara, and other large cities, while the seniina- 
ries of the Jews and Christians at Berytus, 
Nisibis, Antioch, and Edessa, were not only 
tolerated, but encouraged. 

It was in Spain, however, that the highest 
development of the Saracenic intellectual cul- 
ture took place, or, at least, our knowledge of 
its development there is more full than else- 
where. The Moors, under the aggressive im- 
pulse of their new faith, had crossed the 
Straits of Gibraltar, about the commencement 
of the eighth century, swept over the fertile 



108 HISTOEY AND 

lands of Spain almost without resistance, and, 
under the leadership of the brave and bold 
Abd-el-Malek, pushed forward to subdue 
France also ; but their onward progress was 
stayed by Charles Martel, who, by his great 
victory over them in a. d. 732, on the banks 
of the Loire, caused the tide of invasion to 
roll back upon itself. 

For nearly seven centuries the Moslem 
power continued to prevail in Spain, waning 
indeed and restricted in its territory toward 
the last, and almost always engaged in war 
with the Christian nations which claimed 
Spain as their lawful heritage, and their allies 
in the adjacent nations. Yet human history 
has hardly recorded elsewhere so brilliant a 
career as that of the Saracens in Spain. 

The plains, the valleys, and the hillsides 
were covered with palaces and costly dwell- 
ings, in the light and graceful styles of Moor- 
ish architecture. Poetry and the fine arts 
flourished ; the courts of the Moorish mon- 
archs were the resort of eminent scholars ; 
and over the whole land, schools and universi- 



PEOGRESS OF EDUCATION. 109 

ties, with rich endowments, able professoi's, 
and large and valuable libraries, had sprung 
up under the fostering care of the govern- 
ment. Hakem II. (796-822), Almanzor, Ab- 
der-Rahman II., and Ab-der-Rahman III. were 
the noblest patrons of science among the 
Moorish kings. During the reign of the last- 
named king, about 940 a. d., there were in 
in existence seventeen universities, the most 
renowned of which was Cordova (which even 
in Roman times had been distinguished as a 
seat of literature), and sixty-six public libra- 
ries, of which that at Cordova alone contained 
six hundred thousand volumes. Notwith- 
standing the contempt with which the Koran 
treated women, female education was not 
neglected in Spain, and many of the most 
eminent poetical writers of the nation were of 
the gentler sex. All the advantages of the 
public seminaries were equally free to them, 
and the devoirs paid by the chivalric knights 
to the ladies of their choice were as often in 
homage to their high intellectual endowments 
as to the charms of their beauty and virtue. 



110 HISTOEY AND 

The universities of Toledo, Salamanca, and 
Seville, though inferior in renown to Cordova, 
were yet celebrated all over Europe ; and the 
African cities of Kairwan, Tunis, Fessan, and 
Algiers could also boast of their high-schools. 

Indeed, whatever of civilization and educa- 
tion has penetrated beyond the desert into 
Negroland and the adjacent countries, can be 
traced directly to Moorish invasion and Mo- 
hammedan learning. Egypt, too, under the 
sway of the Khalifs, regained her old renown, 
and schools and colleges again testified to her 
zeal for education. 

The brilliant results of the early ages of 
Moslem sway have vanished: the poets, phi- 
losophers, mathematicians, astrologers, and al- 
chemists of the times of the Abassides are 
gone, and have left no successors to fill their 
places; and though, in all the Mohammedan 
cities, schools for boys are still maintained, 
and the higher studies are prosecuted to some 
extent, the zeal that once animated the teach- 
ers, the profound learning, and the literary 
and scientific attainments which made them 



1 \ 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 115 

philosopliers was Nezahualcoyotl^ a prince of 
pure character, great learning, and extraordi- 
nary genius, whose perceptions of religious 
truth seem to have been as accurate and 
sublime as those of Socrates and Plato, and 
whose patronage of learning is deserving of 
record. His hymns, or religious poems, have 
a lofty pathos and a pensive tenderness hardly 
equalled by any uninspired writings. 

Among the extraordinary institutions of 
Mexico, one is deserving of notice in a history 
of education : the tribunal called the Council of 
Music, but whose object was the encourage- 
ment of science and art. All works on any 
science must be submitted to its censorship, 
before they could be made public. All the 
productions of art, and the nicer fabrics, were 
also subjected to its scrutiny. The professors 
in the various branches of science were obliged 
to pass an examination before it ere they 
entered on their duties, and the schools of the 
country were under its special supervision. 
On stated days, historical compositions and 
poems on moral or traditional topics were 



116 HISTORY AND 

recited before it by their authors, and prizes 
awarded to the successful competitors. 

In Peru there had been less intellectual 
progress. There was no written language, 
and the quipu^ a fringe of cord about two 
feet long, of various colors, on which dates, 
amounts, and events were specified by means 
of knots, was their only substitute for written 
records. This was used more for arithmetical 
purposes, and as a system of mnemonics, than 
for any other purpose. 

Education was withheld from the masses by 
royal injunction. Only the children of the 
Incas, and their descendants, could receive 
instruction. These, who formed the nobility 
of the nation, and were very numerous, were 
placed under the care of the Amantas^ or wise 
men, who were the sole teachers of youth. 
The children were instructed in their national 
history, in the art of government, and in the 
peculiar rites of their religion. They also 
received some instruction in rhetoric, the art 
of elocution, the elements of arithmetic, and 
the understanding of the quipus. 



PEOGRESS OF EDUCATION. 117 

The ballads of the Jiaravecs^ or national 
poets, which were mostly of an historical char- 
acter, were also committed to memory by the 
youth, and chanted at the royal festivals. The 
government maintained theatrical exhibitions, 
in which both tragedies and comedies were 
performed ; being, in this respect, in advance 
of the Mexicans, who had gone no further 
than pantomime. In astronomical knowledge 
they were inferior to the Aztecs, not being 
able to adjust so accurately the variation 
between the lunar and solar year. They had, 
however, learned to take azimuth observations, 
and had ascertained, very correctly, the times 
of the solstices and the period of the equi- 
noxes. They knew some of the planets, but 
did not, like the Mexicans, understand the 
causes of eclipses. 

In agricultural science they were far in ad- 
vance of any other American race ; with the 
methods of irrigation, draining, manuring, 
terracing steep hillsides, and the rotation of 
crops, they were familiar. They had made 
use of guano as a manure for centuries before 



118 HISTORY AND 

the discovery of this continent, and along the 
sea-coast used the sardines, which were very 
abundant, for enriching their lands, in the 
same way that the menhaden or white-fish is 
used by our farmers on the seaboard. Their 
plow was a rude affair, it is true ; but they 
managed to stir the soil more deeply with it, 
than their European successors did with an 
imported implement. They were also accom- 
plished road-builders, and the great highway 
of the Incas from Quito to Cuzco, even in its 
present ruined state, exhibits an amount of 
engineering ability which would have done no 
discredit to a highly civilized nation. 



In this brief sketch of the educational con- 
dition of the nations unaffected by Christian- 
ity, we can not fail to be impressed with the 
following facts : that education was universally 
considered as the privilege or perquisite of 
the higher classes alone ; that it was generally 
regarded as the affair of the State, and its 
object was the preparation of the youth for a 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 119 

military, political, or priestly career; that the 
masses were purposely kept in the most abject 
ignorance, as thereby they were more readily 
controlled by the intelligent few ; that in most 
countries the privilege of education was de- 
nied to the female sex, except in the case of 
those who were unchaste ; and that the mo- 
tives of religion, morality, or philanthropy 
had no influence in the promotion of intel- 
lectual culture. Let us now turn our attention 
to the character and progress of education 
when influenced and controlled by a new 
motive-power, Christianity. 



CHAPTER IX. 

EnrcATioiT since the Christian eea.— The character and influence 
of the teachings of Christ and of his apostles. — The influence of 
Christianity in modifying the family relation and the social and 
intellectual position of woman. — Testimony of Libanius. — Early 
Christian education mainly domestic. — School at Alexandria. — Pan- 
tsemis. — Origen. — Schools at Cesarea. — At Antioch, Edessa, Eome, 
Carthage, &c. — The schools for Catechumens merely of a religious 
character. 

We have already seen how powerful was 
the mfluence exerted on the education of 
their several nations by Con-fut-see, Zartusht, 
Lycurgus, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aris- 
totle, and Mohammed ; yet none of these 
were capable of producing a tithe, or even a 
hundredth part, of the change in the con- 
trolling motives of men and nations which was 
the result of the teachings of the Founder of 
Christianity ; there were radical diiferences in 
the character of their instruction and his: 
they dealt only with the words and outward 
conduct of their disciples ; he, with the 
thoughts and intents of the heart : they recom- 



122 niSTOKY AND 

mended virtue from considerations of policy, 
and personal comfort and advantage ; he, as a 
natural manifestation of a heart filled with 
love to God and to our fellow-men: they 
withheld knowledge from the poor, the lowly, 
the abject ; he recognized it as the birthright 
of every son and daughter of Adam : they, for 
the most part, excluded woman from educa- 
tion, and from the social position which she 
was qualified by her Creator to adorn ;Qie 
honored woman in all the relations of life, and 
opened wide the gates of instruction to her: 
they recommended no measures of philan- 
thropic relief to the sick, the suffering, the 
infirm, or the enslaved ; while he regarded 
the comfort, solace, and relief of these as a 
part of his special mission. 

With principles differing so widely fi'om 
those of all previous teachers and philosophers, 
it can not occasion surprise that the results of 
the predominance of his faith should have 
been such as to revolutionize all former sys- 
tems of education ; we can only wonder that 
the perversity, ignorance, and willfulness of 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 123 

man have, to such an extent, prevented their 
complete development. 

During the three years of his public minis- 
trations, Jesus was almost incessantly engaged 
in giving instruction. To the crowds which 
followed his footsteps he taught in parables, 
usually drawn from nature or from the cus- 
toms and practices of the Jewish family — a 
method previously practiced by the Hebrew 
prophets, and to some extent by the pagan 
philosophers. 

To his more immediate and intimate disci- 
ples these were explained and illustrated with 
more completeness than in his public dis- 
courses; to them, also, he more fully devel- 
oped his plans, his purposes, and his doctrines ; 
yet there was, in this special teaching, nothing 
analogous to the esoteric system of the Greek, 
Egyptian, and Hindoo philosophers and 
priests, for these instructions were only in- 
tended to qualify them to declare, with more 
clearness and accuracy, the truths which he 
had come to establish. 

The high and sacred character which he 



124 HISTORY AND 

affixed to the marriage relation, the prohibi- 
tion of polygamy, and of divorce except for a 
single cause, and the elevation of the social 
position of woman, taught both by precept 
and example ; and the tenderness and love 
which he manifested for children, so different 
from the sternness of the Hebrew parents, 
and so incompatible with the gross and cruel 
selfishness which had led pagan philosophers 
to advise, and pagan parents to practice, the 
destruction of the feeble and infirm among 
their children — all demonstrated how radical 
a change of principle, in the position of woman 
and the education of children, he was to in- 
troduce. 

Of his disciples and apostles, Luke and Paul 
were men of superior education; and while the 
one was the chronicler of the sayings and 
doings of his divine Master and of the early 
Church, — the other, by public disputation, by 
written argument, by oral instruction, and by 
his admirable letters, convinced his opponents, 
and taught the churches he had planted. In 
his writings, and those of the other apostles. 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 125 

we find frequent precepts on the education 
and training of children, designed to impress 
upon parents the modification, in their rela- 
tions to their children, which their profession 
of Christianity had eifected, and to enforce 
upon the young the duty of filial obedience 
from higher motives than those of fear. 

The parental rule, under the Hebrew, the 
Greek, and the Roman laws, was one of 
extreme severity; the parent possessed the 
power even of putting his child to death, and 
fear, not love, was the predominant- motive of 
action on the part of the child. The apostles 
sought to substitute the principle of mutual 
love, and the spirit of Christian tenderness 
and obedience, for this severity and fear, and 
they were successful. 

In the first century of the Christian era, 
domestic education reached a higher point, in 
the families of the Christians, than it had ever 
previously attained. The children were not, 
perhaps, so conversant with Greek literature 
as some of their heathen neighbors, but their 
modesty, their courteous manners, their rever- 



126 HISTOEY AND 

ence for their parents, their knowledge of the 
Scriptures, and their general intelligence called 
forth the unwilling commendation of their 
enemies. 

The purity and chastity, even in thought 
and conversation, of the Christian maidens, 
formed so marked a contrast with the general 
license indulged by the daughters of the 
pagans, that it elicited the encomiums even of 
the bitterest pagan writers. The high social 
position accorded to woman in the Christian 
system, had operated so favorably in drawing 
out the best points in her character, that the 
Christian mothers of the first centuries of the 
Christian era had no occasion to fear a com- 
parison with the noble women of the heroic 
days of the Roman republic. The names of 
Anthusa, the mother of Chrysostom, of Nonna, 
the mother of Gregory Nazianzen, and of 
Monica, the mother of Augustine, will occur 
to many of our readers as justifying the excla- 
mation of their bitter enemy, Libanius, " What 
wonderful women are these, of the Christian 
faith!" 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 127 

The first school of high grade exclusively 
under Christian control, was that of the Cate- 
chists at Alexandria, said to have been founded 
by Pantasnus, A. d. 181, and continued, after 
his death, by Clement, who, in his turn, was 
succeeded, a. d. 213, by Or igen , and he by 
Heraclas. The object of this school was to 
qualify young men to become preachers ; and 
besides the instruction in theology, mathe- 
matics, logic, rhetoric, natural philosophy, 
metaphysics, ethics, and astronomy were also 
taught. It continued in existence until about 
the middle of the fourth century, and perhaps 
even later. 

As, however, it was impossible for all, or 
even the greater part, of those who entered 
the ministry to resort to Alexandria for in- 
struction, it was customary with the more 
highly educated pastors and bishops to receive 
pupils into their own families, and instruct 
them in the profane sciences as well as in 
theology. The renown of the school at Alex- 
andria was the more extraordinary from the 
fact that it was established at the period when 



128 Hl&TOEY AND 

the pagan school of Alexandria, founded by 
Ptolemy Soter, and sustained and endowed by 
his successors and the Roman emperors, was 
in the zenith of its reputation ; having a noble 
library (the Museum), and a corps of the most 
renowned philosophers of that period among 
its professors. To its teachings many of the 
most eminent of the Christian preachers were 
indebted for their education. 

Origen, whom we have named as one of the 
teachers of the school of Catechists, and who 
was, perhaps, the most eminent Christian 
scholar of his time, was banished from Alex- 
andria in A. D. 231, and soon after established 
a similar school at Cesarea in Palestine, which 
attained to considerable distinction. Schools 
of the same character were established, a little 
later, at Antioch and at Edessa. 

In the west. Christian schools were founded, 
as early as the beginning of the fourth cen- 
tury, in Rome, Carthage, Milan, Treves, Autun, 
Marseilles, and Lyons. Some writers have 
confounded with these the schools for Cate- 
chumens, which were held everywhere, and 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 129 

which were intended only to instruct the 
young and the ignorant in the elementary 
principles of Christian doctrine; but the two 
had no connection. 

6» 



CHAPTER X. 

Period of Constantine and his successors.— The Western Empire 
given over to barbarism. — Corruption of the Latin language. — Ca- 
PELLA. — Analysis of his .S'a^yrtVon.— Cassiodorus.— Worthlessness 
of his text-books.— Bishop Isidore of Seville.— Contents of his 
Origines. — This regarded as the most learned book of the dark ages. 
— The cathedral and monastic schools. — Meagerness of instruction 
in them. — Scarcity of parchment and papyrus. — Palimpsests. 

The toleration of Christianity (a. d. 311), 
and its subsequent establishment as the re- 
ligion of the State under Constantine, naturally 
led to the organization of a greater number of 
schools, and a larger attendance upon those 
already established ; but the troublous times 
which followed in the Western Empire, and 
the constant immigration of the barbaric races 
into Italy for two centuries, not only operated 
as a check upon literature and intellectual 
progress, but greatly debased and modified 
the Latin language, so that the Latin of the 
Augustan age was hardly understood by the 
inhabitants of Italy in the sixth century. 



132 HISTORY AND 

In the Eastern Empire a higher civilization 
and a more generous culture prevailed, for a 
time ; and Constantino j)le and the other cities 
of the East had their schools and literature, 
and cultivated science and the arts, after 
ignorance and barbarism had overspread the 
West. 

It will aid us to form some estimate of the 
education of the fifth and sixth centuries, in 
the Western Empire, and indeed throughout 
Europe, if we examine, briefly, the text-books 
in general use at that period. The course of 
instruction in the schools was divided into the 
Trivium, which embraced grammar, logic or 
dialectics, and rhetoric; and the Quadrivium, 
which included arithmetic, geometry, astron- 
omy, and music. 

The usual, and indeed the almost universal, 
text-book in all these studies, for nearly a 
thousand years, was the Satira or Satyricon of 
Marcianus Mineus Felix Capella, an encyclo- 
pedia, in nine books, of these sciences, in 
which prose and poetry alternated about 
equally. This singular work, which has come 



PKOGEESS OF EDUCATION. 133 

down to our own times, was written about 
A. D. 470. The first two books are entitled 
"De Nuptiis Pliilologice et Mercuri%'''' and give, 
with copious verbiage, a narrative of the ad- 
ventures of Mercury in search of a spouse, his 
rejection by Sophia (wisdom) and Psyche (the 
soul), and his final wooing of Philologia ; the 
subsequent books introduce, in turn, the chil- 
dren of this redoubtable pair, in charp^cter, 
beginning with Grammar, armed with the 
needful implements of her art, and recounting 
her history and achievements ; she is followed, 
successively, by Dialectic, Rhetoric, Geometry, 
Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Music, each of 
whom declares her attainments, in alternate 
verse and prose. 

The meagerness of the instruction in these 
studies may be inferred from the fact that the 
Arithmetic occupies but a brief space, and 
gives only the digits and their fractions, with- 
out any valuable instruction even in the 
elementary rules. It is mainly occupied with 
discussions concerning the virtues of certain 
numbers. The Grammar is equally brief, and 



134 HISTORY AND 

dwells principally upon the names and powers 
of the letters. The Geometry is very little 
better, though Euclid's work was not rare. 
The other books, except that on dialectics, 
are nearly valueless. Aristotle was the basis 
of all dialectic instruction, though his works 
were not available in Latin till a few years 
later. 

The only formidable rivals of Capella, in 
the publication of these encyclopedic text- 
books, were Cassiodorus and Isidore, who 
flourished in the sixth century. Their works 
are even more meager in instruction than 
that of Capella, — the Arithmetic of Cassiodo- 
rus occupying but two folio pages, and not 
containing a word even of the elementary 
rules of the science. His Geometry occupies 
about .the same space, and contains only a few 
axioms. The Grammar and Rhetoric are of 
about equal value. Music then, as later, was 
confined mostly to church chanting ; and As- 
tronomy was only a brief epitome of the 
system of Ptolemy, and did not even explain 
the cause of eclipses. Capella, indeed, like 



FKOGEESS OF EDUCATION. 135 

some of his predecessors, seems to have had 
some dim idea of the possibility that the earth 
revolved around the sun, but only sufficient to 
suggest it vaguely. And these books were 
the text-books for the next thousand years! 
and even in these, few went beyond the 
Trivmm. 

One name illumines the fast-gathering dark- 
ness of the period — Boethius (g. v.), born 
455, or, as some say, 470 a. d., and executed, 
by the order of Theodoric, king of the Ostro- 
goths, 526. Boethius was the last link which 
connected the learning and accomplishments 
of the Augustan age with the darkness of the 
middle ages. Learned in all the literature of 
Greece and Rome, a writer worthy of the 
golden age of Rome, an inventor and discov- 
erer in astronomical and mathematical science, 
and an ardent friend and patron of education, 
he had fallen upon evil times. Though for 
many years a favorite of the illiterate but 
energetic Theodoric, who at first seemed to 
take pleasure in furthering his efforts for the 
diffusion of education, he finally fell under his 



136 HISTOEY AND 

displeasure, in part from his efforts to instruct 
the countrymen of the monarch, the Ostro- 
goths, whose ignorance and contempt of edu- 
cation gratified their king. Boethius trans- 
lated several of Aristotle's and Plato's works, 
and himself wrote treatises on arithmetic, 
rhetoric, music, geometry, and the quadrature 
of the circle. He also translated the works of 
Euclid, Archimedes, and Ptolemeeus of Alex- 
andria. But his works were too learned for 
the age in which he lived, and seem never to 
have come into very general use. The intel- 
lectual nadir of the world was approaching; 
in the seventh century ignorance sounded its 
lowest depths. 

Isidore, bishop of Seville (born 570, died 
636), is almost the only man of this period of 
darkness, who could lay claim to any consider- 
able scholarship, and his attainments in science 
would be regarded as exceedingly meager in 
our times ; yet he was, at that day, considered 
a prodigy of learning.* It is recorded, to his 

* The fathers of the 8th Council of Toledo, decreed him publicly the 
rnobt fulsome eulogies, and spoke of him in their capitularies in the 



PEOGRESS OF EDUCATION. 137 

honor, that he attempted to diffuse education 
among his clergy, and established a school at 
Seville. He also prepared an encyclopedia, 
near the close of his life, in which he attempted 
to give to the world a compendium of the 
knowledge which appeared so vast to his 
cotemporaries. 

This work, entitled Ortgines, seu Etymologi- 
arum lihr% was in twenty books. The first 
three were devoted to the seven liberal arts . 
(the trivium and qiiadriviimi)^ and may be 
supposed to furnish a resume of his knowledge 
in regard to them; but they do not contain 
one-tenth of the information to be found in 
our most elemetary school-books. Under the 
head of Arithmetic, for instance, he only ex- 
plains that arithmetic and the names of num- 
bers were derived from the Greek, speaks of 
their usefulness, especially in enabling us to 
understand the mystic sense of some passages 



following terms: Doctor egregiiis, Fcdesice Catholics novissimtim decus, 
prcecedentibus mtate postremus, dodrince comparatione non infimus, atgve, 
et quod majus est, jam sceculorum finitorum doctisslTtius, cum reverentia 
nommandus, Isldorus. It is difficult to imagine what more they could 
have said in the way of eulogy. 



138 HISTORY AND 

of Scripture, and divides them into even and 
odd numbers ; and then proceeds to speak of 
geometry. In grammar, he has evidently no 
knowledge of syntax and very little of etymol- 
ogy; he confounds rhetoric with dialectics, 
and considers astrology a valuable department 
of astronomical knowledge. The remaining 
books of the On'gines are occupied with such 
topics as these: Medicine, Law, the Scrip- 
tures, God, an account of heretics and their 
opinions. Languages, of which he specifies 
three principal ones — Hebrew, Greek, and 
Latin; a Latin dictionary, with very fanciful 
derivations ; Man, and the parts of the body ; 
Animals; the World, and its visible phenom- 
ena ; Geography, Great Cities, Precious Stones, 
Agriculture ; War, the Drama, &c. ; miscella- 
neous subjects, and Food. 

On most of these topics the ideas enunciated 
are crude, fanciful, often indeed absurd. Yet, 
if we compare the attainments necessary for 
the preparation of such a work with those 
possessed by 'the kings, nobles, and even the 
bishops and inferior clergy of his time, we can 



PKOGRESS OF EDUCATION. 139 

readily understand why he should have had so 
exalted a reputation for learning. 

Of the kings then reigning in Europe, very 
few were able to read, and still fewer to 
write ; their courtiers were, of course, equally 
ignorant; ability to read and write was not 
considered, by any means, indispensable even 
to the bishops, much less to the inferior 
clergy. The monasteries generally contained 
libraries, and some of the monks could usually 
write well enough to transcribe, such copies of 
the Scriptures or liturgy as were needed ; but 
this was done in so imperfect and slovenly a 
manner that their manuscripts were full of 
errors, and a century or two later required the 
most strenuous efforts for their correction. 

Schools were attached to the cathedrals and 
the monasteries, and had been, in many cases, 
since the latter part of the fourth century ; but 
the children were, at this period, seldom taught 
either to read or write. The ability to repeat 
and chant the Credo ^ the Pater-nosier^ the Ave 
Maria^ and a few Latin hymns, without any 
idea of their signification, was the extent of 



14:0 HISTOEY OF EDUCATION. 

their instruction. The importation of papyrus 
from Egypt had ceased ; cotton and linen 
paper were yet unknown in Europe, and 
parchment was costly and difficult of prepara- 
tion. The great libraries of Alexandria, of 
Rome, and of Constantinople had perished 
by fire ; and the illiterate monks knew just 
enough to efface the writing from the few 
valuable parchments in their libraries, and 
cover them anew with silly legends, the 
product of brains muddled with intoxicating 
liquors. The chemical skill of modern times 
has enabled us to discharge the ink from 
many of these falim]3sests^ and restore the 
classical works so ruthlessly destroyed. 



CHAPTEE XI. 

Education in the British Isles. — Charlemagne, the most efficient 
friend of education at this period. — His invitation to Alcuin. — His 
Capitularies. — Services of Alcuin in promoting education. — Paul 
the Deacon, Peter of Pisa, Clement the Hibernian, and Eaban 
Maur also rendered valuable service. — Alfred the Great, the edu- 
cational reformer of Britain. — Saracen learning at this period. 
— Eminent Jewish scholars of the time. 

The British isles were not, at this period, 
reduced to quite so low a condition of igno- 
rance as the continental countries. Education 
was not, indeed, diffused generally among the 
people, but the cloistral schools at York, Can- 
terbury, Oxford, Cambridge, Dublin, and per- 
haps some other points, were decidedly in 
advance of any of those on the continent. 
St. Patrick, Colomba, Willebrod, Aelbert, John 
of Beverley, bishop of Hagulstad, — a man of 
learning for his times, and so zealously dis- 
posed in favor of education that he even 
attempted the instruction of a deaf mute, — ■ 
Ceolfric, abbot of the cloistral school at 



142 HISTORY AND 

Wearmouth, and the Venerable Bede, the early 
ecclesiastical historian of England, — all flour- 
ished in this and the preceding century, as 
did also St. Boniface, also a native of England, 
whose labors and martyrdom, in the attempt 
to promote the education, civilization, and 
Christianization of the rude Frisians, are de- 
serving of commemoration. 

The first movement, however, looking to- 
ward any material progress in education, 
occurred during the reign of the Emperor 
Charlemagne (a. d. 768-814). Though him- 
self, in the early part of his career, illiterate 
and unable to writie, this energetic prince 
possessed wisdom enough to appreciate the 
advantages of education to his people, and its 
necessity for those who administered either 
civil or ecclesiastical power. In . his tour 
through Italy, about a. d. 780, he met with 
several men of considerable learning, and was 
so much impressed with the importance of 
intellectual improvement that he urged the 
most eminent of them, Alcuin, an Anglo- 
Saxon, born m Brittany, but educated at 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 143 

York, England, and at that time at the head 
of a cloistral school established by the arch- 
bishop of York, to come to his court and take 
up his residence there. 

Alcuin at first declined, but, after repeated 
solicitation, acceded to his request, and, in 
782, became a member of the emperor's 
household. So eager was Charlemagne for 
learning, that he placed himself and all the 
members of his family under the instruction 
of Alcuin, who taught the trivium and 
quadrivium to the princes, nobles, and cour- 
tiers of the realm ; thus establishing, or at 
least reviving, in an improved form, the auUc 
or palatine school of the Merovingian kings. 
Alcuin was probably the most learned man of 
his time ; but though his attainments at a later 
period would not have been deemed remarka- 
ble, he is deserving of honor for the efforts to 
which he prompted his imperial pupil for the 
promotion of education throughout his empire. 
Through his influence the cathedral schools 
were reopened, and their course of study 
enlarged and elevated ; the manuscripts of the 



144 HISTORY AND 

old Roman literature brought to light, cor- 
rected, and for the first time punctuated, and, 
to some extent, restored as text-books in the 
schools, from which they had been banished 
on theological grounds. 

In two Capitularies^ issued 787 and 788, 
addressed by Charlemagne to the religious 
preachers under his government, and to Ban- 
gulf, a celebrated abbe, the head of a religious 
order, and his congregations, the emperor 
insists on a higher education for the priest- 
hood, the multiplication of correct copies of 
the Scriptures and of the Latin classics, and 
the teaching of these and of the liberal arts, 
by the priests and monks, to the pupils of the 
schools. In the administration of his school of 
the palace and his other educational enterprises, 
Charlemagne Avas also aided by Paul the Lom- 
bard Deacon, Clement the Hibernian, and Peter 
of Pisa, all of them men eminent, in that dark 
period, for learning and intellectual ability. 

Alcuin withdrew from the court, on account 
of age and inhrmity, in 796, but established 
ail excellent school at his abbey of St. Martin 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 145 

of Tours, where he died in 804 Several of 
his pupils also became distinguished as teach- 
ers, the most eminent of whom, Raban Maur, 
succeeded him in the Palatine school ; and 
had the clergy seconded the efforts of Alcuin 
and Charlemagne for the general promotion of 
education, the intellectual dawn need not have 
been postponed for seven centuries ; but exer- 
tion and study were not suited to their dispo- 
sitions, and on the death of Charlemagne there 
was a gradual relapse, which, despite the 
efforts of Louis le Debonnaire and Charles the 
Bald, well-nigh obliterated the progress which 
had been made during his administration. 

This much, however, had been gained : the 
cathedral and conventual schools, which, if 
not broken up by the civil wars which pre- 
ceded his reign, had, at least, been rendered 
nearly worthless, were restored, and the char- 
acter of their teachings elevated ; the German 
language had been recognized as a medium 
for instruction, and the Scriptures, as well as 
some text-books, translated into it ; and there 
were scattered throuo:]i the vast domains of 



146 HISTOKY AND 

the emperor a few learned men (learned i. e. 
for the time), who would seek the promotion 
of science and the improvement of education. 

The next remarkable patron of education 
was Alfred the Great, of England (a. d. 849- 
900). The civil disorders which preceded his 
reign and which occupied the earlier portions 
of it, the repeated and destructive invasions 
of the Danes, and the consequent misery and 
poverty of the people, the destruction of the 
convents and cloistral schools and the valuable 
libraries which they contained, had plunged 
the inhabitants of England into a depth of 
ignorance and wretchedness of which they 
had no previous experience. 

It was under circumstances thus discour- 
aging, and while himself involved in almost 
interminable wars, that Alfred turned his 
attention to the intellectual improvement of 
his people. With the exception of a portion 
of Bishop Isidore's works and the gospel of 
St. John, which had previously been translated 
into Anglo-Saxon by the Venerable Bede, 
there seem to have been no books in the 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 147 

vulgar tongue; and Alfred, rightly judging 
that the cultivation of the spoken language of 
a people was one of the first steps toward 
their mental culture, translated with his own 
hands, amid his other cares, the works of 
Bede, Orosius, and the Consolations of Philos- 
ophy of Boethius, and induced others to 
undertake the translation of other works. To 
teach the young to read these books, and also 
some of those in the Latin, was his next effort ; 
and, under his fostering care, the monastic 
schools were revived, endowments were be- 
stowed upon them, and the strongest induce- 
ments he could offer were set before the most 
eminent scholars of the time to take charge of 
them. 

Among those who accepted his invitation^ 
and aided according to their ability, were 
Grimbald, a French monk, John, surnamed 
the Saxon, St. Neoth, Asser, subsequently his 
biographer, Plegmond, archbishop of Canter- 
bury, Dunwulf, afterwards bishop of Worces- 
ter, Gerbert, bishop of Chester, Wulfsig, and 
Athelstan, bishop of London ; and, most re- 



148 HISTORY AND 

nowned of them all, John Scotus, called 
Erigena, to whom some writers attribute the 
origin of the scholastic philosophy. Oxford 
was, during Alfred's reign, and had been, 
indeed, for two or three centuries, renowned 
for its schools, connected, for the most part, 
with the monasteries. 

Under the genial influence which Alfred 
exerted in behalf of education, these schools 
were a popular resort for scholars ; and hence 
some writers have attributed to him, but with- 
out any just authority, the establishment of the 
University of Oxford, — an event which, so far 
as its formal or public recognition was con- 
cerned, did not take place till nearly three 
centuries later. 

In England, however, as in France, the 
impulse given to education by its liberal and 
enlightened monarch, did not long survive his 
death, and the tenth century is usually reck- 
oned, by English writers, the darkest period 
of its history. It can hardly be said, how- 
ever, that the darkness was as profound over 
the whole of Europe as in the seventh century. 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 149 

We have already spoken of the Saracen 
conquests in Sicily and Spain, and of their 
cultivation of science and literature at a 
period when ignorance had overspread the 
rest of Europe. In the tenth century they 
were approaching that intellectual eminence, 
which, in the two succeeding centuries, they 
so fully maintained ; and here and there a 
Christian scholar, athirst for knowledge, ven- 
tured to Cordova, Granada, or Seville, and 
quaffed it from Moslem fountains. 

Their influence, too, was felt in other coun- 
tries. Through their Sicilian colony they 
introduced paper, made from cotton and linen 
rags, into Europe ; and if they were not the 
inventors of what are usually known as the 
Arabic numerals, — ^recent discoveries making 
it probable that all, except the cipher, were 
known to Boethius, — they certainly first came 
into general use from their teachings ; algebra, 
too, seems first to have been taught in their 
schools, and the scholars of Christendom began 
to discover that mathematical studies were of 
some use for other purposes than to interpret 



150 HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 

■ the mystical sense of the numbers used in the 
Scriptures. Chemical science was also intro- 
duced by them; and though we cannot but 
regret the years and intellect wasted in the 
researches of alchemy, we may be comforted 
by remembering the numerous discoveries 
which were incident to it. Medical science, 
too, was confined, for several centuries, to the 
Saracens and the Jews, who made commenda- 
ble progress in it. 

The Jews, indeed, were more eminent, in 
general scholarship, than any of the nations 
among whom they dwelt, and, but for the 
social disabilities under which they labored, 
might have exerted a favorable influence upon 
the intellectual condition of Christendom. 
Sedecias, the physician of Charles the Bald, 
David Mosel, Aben Zoar, Benjamin of Tudela, 
Solomon ben Jarchi, Judah Cohen, and Sava- 
sorda are a few of the eminent men of this 
persecuted race, who, in the schools of France, 
Italy, and Spain, did much service in the cause 
of education. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Universities in Italy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. — Depart- 
ments of law and medicine established. — Schools of the Benedictine 
and other monastic orders. — Cause of the establishment of univer- 
sities. — The scholastic philosophy and its founders. — Its influence. 
— Condition of education in the Eastern Empire. — The eflbrts of 
the dynasty of Comncnus for its improvement. — Downfall of the 
Eastern Empire. — Eefle.x influence upon Kussia. 

In Italy, the gradual improvement in intelli- 
gence and learning began early in the twelfth 
century to exhibit itself in the organization of 
universities, of which those of Bologna and 
Salerno were the earliest examples. Both 
originated, as did most of the earliest Euro- 
pean universities, in schools which, under a 
succession of able teachers, had acquired 
renown in some particular branch of instruc- 
tion. Bologna had maintained such a school, 
in high repute for legal science, from the 
early part of the eleventh century, and perhaps 
even earlier; and in the beginning of the 
twelfth century, its professors were often 



152 HISTORY AND 

called upon to solve knotty legal questions, by 
the rulers of the adjacent States. 

In 1137, Wernerius, one of the most emi- 
nent jurists of the middle ages, published and 
expounded to a vast concourse of students his 
Pandects. Other sciences were also tau"-ht 
there, and the University of Bologna seems to 
have existed in fact, though not in name, from 
the early part of the twelfth century. It was 
incorporated in 1228. Salerno had, about the 
same period, acquired a similar reputation in 
medicine. 

In this review of the few lights whose glim- 
mering only rendered the darkness more visi- 
ble, we must not forget the services rendered 
to education by some of the monastic orders. 
Though too many of these led lives of mere 
sensual indulgence, and gloried in their igno- 
rance, some were inspired with a nobler ambi- 
tion, and sought to render the monastic life 
of benefit to the world, as its founders had 
intended. 

The monks of the Benedictine order had, 
from their foundation, devoted themselves to 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 153 

the work of teaching ; and, under the wise 
and energetic management of Odon, abbe of 
Cluny (927 a. d.), they regained much of their 
early efficiency. The new orders of Chartres 
and Citeaux, founded about the close of the 
eleventh century, were also of material service 
in maintaining the monastic schools. Germany 
was most benefited by these labors. The con- 
ventual schools of Fulda, Corbie, Hildesheim, 
Paderborn, Hersfeld, and Hirschau, became 
renowned in the tenth and eleventh centuries, 
not less for the eminent men who presided 
over them than for the extension of the 
instruction beyond the seven liberal arts. 
Painting and poetry, and the Greek and Latin 
literature of the classic ages, were taught, and 
libraries, with very considerable collections of 
books, were founded. 

The cathedral and collegiate schools even 
surpassed the conventual, in their curriculum 
of study and in their freedom in the use of the 
Latin and Greek authors. But this freedom 
was confined to Germany. Elsewhere through- 
out Christendom the Greek and the Latin of 



154 HISTORY AND 

the Augustan age were prohibited studies, and 
fierce anathemas were hurled at those who 
sought to acquire them. Even the bishops 
most zealous in the cause of education were 
fain to content themselves with requiring that 
the inferior clergy should be able to under- 
stand the liturgy, or, if this was too much, that 
they should at least be able to pronounce it 
correctly and recite it without omissions. The 
clergy being thus illiterate, the laity, as might 
be expected, were still more so. A layman 
who knew how to write was reckoned almost 
a prodigy; in many of the schools writing 
was not taught, and paper was yet so scarce 
that, when taught, black surfaces, like our 
blackboards, were used for writing, or the 
pupils were required to furnish wax tablets. 
In 1291, the Abbe and the entire Chapter of 
St. Gall did not know how to write. 

The organization of a number of universities 
during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 
and the new impulse thus given to learning, 
did something to prevent the darkness of 
ignorance from entirely enshrouding the na- 



PKOGRESS OF EDUCATION. 155 

tions. Twenty-three universities, including 
those of Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, Mont- 
pellier, Toulouse, Bologna, Salerno, Padua, 
Naples, Salamanca, Rome, and Lisbon, date 
from these two centuries. 

We should deceive ourselves, however, were 
we to attribute this sudden establishment of so 
many institutions of learning to a revival of 
letters, or* a thirst for really scientific attain- 
ments. It was the era of the schoolmen ; the 
scholastic philosophy, whose essence lay in 
nice distinctions, in subtle quibbles, and in the 
artful fence of dialectics, — a philosophy which 
some writers imagine was first taught by John 
Scotus, called Erigena, in the ninth century, 
but which had attracted but little attention 
till the eloquence and logical ability of Roscel- 
linus, of William of Champeaux, and the re- 
nowned Abelard, at the close of the eleventh 
and the beginning of the twelfth century, 
drew listening thousands to their discussions 
and prelections, — now fascinated the intellect 
of Christendom; and though, at the present 
day, the questions they discussed and the dis- 



156 HISTOEY AND 

tinctions tliey drew seem trivial, puerile, and 
foolish, yet, for two centuries and more, they 
so agitated the minds of pope and prelate, of 
cowled monk and priestly father, of cleric and 
laic, of doctors of law and of theology, that 
the universities which had been created as 
battle-grounds for these doughty champions of 
a wordy war, were crowded with students 
from all parts of Christendom. • 

These dialectic conflicts, wearisome as they 
now are to the reader, accomplished much in 
developing freedom of thought, and in pre- 
paring the way for further progress in edu- 
cation. The biographers of Luther attribute 
his power as a debater, and his skill as a 
reasoner, to his thorough mastery of the works 
of the schoolmen, and especially to his famil- 
iarity with the Summa Theologia of Thomas 
Aquinas. 

But while thus tracing the educational 
progress of western Europe^ we must not 
wholly overlook the condition of the Eastern 
Empire, which, at this period, was tottering to 
its fall. From the sixth century, there had 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 157 

been a gradual decay of all institutions for the 
promotion of learning, up to the period of the 
dynasty of Comnenus; and if, at times, the 
voluptuous and effeminate monarchs, ruled by 
women and eunuchs, established some schools 
at Constantinople, their influence was not felt 
beyond the circle of the court. Philosophy 
was indeed taught in their schools, but it was 
the half-comprehended philosophy of Aristotle 
and Plato, with the stupid glosses of the Neo- 
platonists. 

With the accession of Isaac Comnenus to 
the throne, 1057 a. d., there were symptoms of 
a deeper interest, on the part of the emperor, 
for the intellectual improvement of his people. 
The schools of Constantinople acquired a high 
reputation. The ancient classics were intro- 
duced into them, and into the conventual 
schools of the empire ; and though theology 
formed too large a share of the instruction, 
still there were more indications for good than 
in any previous period of its history. His 
successors of that dynasty followed in his foot- 
steps, and, though possessing no great energy 



158 HISTORY AND 

of character, promoted learning to the extent 
of their ability. 

Toward the end of the twelfth century, 
Constantinople was exposed to repeated pil- 
lage ; and the French emperors who, in the 
thirteenth century, established the Latin Em- 
pire there, had no sympathy with the people 
whom they had conquered, and no desire for 
their intellectual culture. Trebisond, indeed, 
and some other of the small independent 
principalities, maintained schools within their 
own boundaries ; but, over the empire in 
general, darkness reigned. The accession of 
Michael Palasologus marks another, but futile, 
effort to restore and improve the schools of his 
domain ; but centuries of misrule had done 
their Avork on the empire, and its subsequent 
history is one of constant and rapid deteriora- 
tion, till at last it fell a prey to the Osmanlis. 

Russia first appears on the stage, as a Chris- 
tian power, in the latter part of the tenth 
century, and its subsequent connection with 
the Eastern Roman Empire, especially in mat- 
ters of education, was intimate. From Con- 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 159 

stantinople came its teachers and its bishops, 
and its intellectual culture varied with that of 
the Roman capital. In the latter years of the 
decline of Constantinople, many of its choicest 
books were removed to Moscow, and the 
great library of the Patriarchs was founded in 
that city ; but Russian education did not, 
during the middle ages, rise above its source, 
and, so far as the masses of the people were 
concerned, came far short of it. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Scholasticism and mysticism in "Western Europe.— Course of study in 
the universities in the thirteenth and fourteentli centuries. — Col- 
leges. — Establishment of gymnasia and trivial schools in Germany. 
— Bacchantes and A. B. C. shooters. — Hardships of the latter. — The 
introduction of linen and cotton paper. — Text-books of the period. 
— Severity of the school discipline.— Eminent friends of education 
among the mystics. — Female education much neglected during this 
period. 

We return to Western Europe, where, in 
spite of the darkness, there was more of intel- 
lectual life than in the effete Oriental Empire. 
The events of the twelfth, thirteenth, and 
fourteenth centuries, which had most influence 
on education, were the formal organization of 
university instruction, the prevalence of the 
scholastic philosophy, and its rival and enemy, 
mysticism^ and the changes effected by the 
Crusades. 

We have already spoken of the origin of 
most of the universities in schools of greater 
or less repute, in which the trivium and quad- 
rivium were taught, and, in some instances, 



162 HISTORY AND 

one or more branches of professional education 
also; it was not until the thirteenth century 
that these schools were formally recognized 
and endowed with money, and with those 
numerous and peculiar privileges which made 
them often formidable in the civil and ecclesi- 
astical conflicts of a later period ; and at first, 
except in the University of Paris, where the- 
ology was taught, that of Salerno, which was 
the seat of medical learning, and that of 
Bologna, where the science of law was prose- 
cuted, they seem not to have gone beyond 
the seven liheral m'ts in their instruction. 

Soon, however, the course of study was 
expanded ; and, in addition to professional 
education which was given in the greater 
part (faculties of theology, law, and medicine 
being organized), the popes, for the most part 
reluctantly, and with many cautions and 
prohibitions,* licensed additional professors. 



* From the number of the popes who were opposed to education, 
justice requires that we should except Gerbert, who was elected to the 
pontifical chair in 999, under the title of Sylvester II. Gerbert was 
one of the most eminent scholars, as well as one of the most liberal 
and catholic spirits, of his time. After acquiring what of science could 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 163 

Thus we find that, in 1312, professorships of 
Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldee were established 
by the pope, at Rome, Paris, Oxford, Bologna, 
and Salamanca. These languages were doubt- 
less regarded as less harmful than the classic 
Latin; for Fritz tells us that, in 1228, Gregory 
IX. prohibited all instruction in the Latin 
classics, and that, in 1254, not only had belles- 
lettres ceased to be cultivated, even in the 
University of Paris, but the names of Cicero 
and Virgil were unknown to the students, and 
the rules of prosody utterly ignored. Toward 
the end of the fourteenth century, the Uni- 
versity of Vienna, then recently established 
(founded a. d. 1365), gave instruction in 
physics and mathematics. 

The colleges — originally only halls, endowed 
by benevolent individuals to furnish lodging, 
and in some instances food also, to the stu- 
dents, but which soon came to have their 



be learned in the best schools of Christendom, he had crossed the 
Pyrenees, and, in the Saracen university of Toledo, had mastered the 
learning of the Arabian scholars. Unfortunately, his career as pope 
was too brief (he died in 1003) to permit him to accomplish much for 
the cause of education, which he had so much at heart. 



164 HISTORY AND 

masters, tutors, and special regulations, re- 
straining those who were on their foundations 
from the riotous and licentious lives of those 
who were students at large — also exerted 
some influence in promoting a higher schol- 
arship. 

In Germany a series of schools were created, 
preparatory for the universities, and known 
under the various names of trivial^ from the 
pupils studying only the trivimn j gymnasia^ 
in which philosophy and history were also 
taught, and academic gymnasia^ which, though 
pursuing a course of study as extensive as the 
universities, had not the power of conferring 
degrees. In the fourteenth century, a practice 
prevailed almost universally, over Middle and 
Southern Europe, which resulted in part, 
doubtless, from the adventurous spirit intro- 
duced by the Crusades. 

At first, the masters, teachers, and professors 
of the schools and universities wandered from 
one university town to another, seeking per- 
haps new ideas, though oftener, doubtless, 
prompted by the desire of a higher compensa- 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 165 

tion ; soon the students began also to lead a 
vagrant life, and, under the name of Bac- 
chantes, roamed over the different university 
towns of Europe, studying a little, but for the 
most part leading a riotous and lawless life, 
and often spending many years in their travels. 
Possessing many immunities and privileges as 
students, they took many more, and became, 
at last, the terror of the towns they visited. 

It was their practice to attach to themselves 
very considerable numbers of young boys, 
whom they professed to teach the elements 
of reading and grammar, but whom they 
really employed to forage for them, requiring 
them, by begging or stealing, to procure their 
food, and beating them cruelly if they failed 
to do so. Of the hardships endured by these 
children, who were called A. B. C. shooters, 
Platter, a Swiss scholar of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, who had been one of them, gives a most 
interesting account in his autobiography. 

The Crusades had impoverished many of 
the countries of Europe, and had thus, per- 
haps, proved unfavorable to the cause of 



166 HISTORY AND 

education ; but they had awakened the intel- 
lect of the people from its deathlike slumber, 
had enlightened their minds as to the produc- 
tions and learning of other countries, had 
evoked a spirit of enterprise, and promoted 
commerce, which, for its efficient operation, 
required a certain amount of education, greater 
than that as yet possessed by the people 
generally. 

The manufacture of paper in Venice, which 
followed the introduction of it into Italy 
during the Crusades, also exerted a powerful 
influence in the promotion of education, by 
multiplying books. The text-books of this 
period, however, contained little of value in 
die way of instruction ; the Satyricon of 
Capella, the Grammar of Donatus, and the 
Doctrinal, a grammatical treatise composed 
by a Franciscan monk of Brittany, and infe- 
rior in merit even to Donatus, were the only 
ordinary text-books; to go beyond these re- 
quired a special permission from the ecclesi- 
astical authorities ; and the schools and pupils 
thus favored, were taught the symbols of the 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 16V 

apostles, the penitential psalms, the canticles 
of the Church, the Morals of Cato, the Eclogues 
of Theodulus (a very brief sacred history), 
the Regulm Pueriles, the Consolations of Phi- 
losophy of Boethius, and a few other works, 
of similar character, but less merit. Geogra- 
phy, history, the mathematics, and the physi- 
cal sciences were utterly neglected. 

But if the teachers bestowed but little 
instruction, they enforced that little by a very 
severe discipline. The title-page of almost 
every text-book of this period, is adorned 
with a picture of the master armed with a 
bunch of rods. The code of the school at 
Worms, in 1260, provided "that any pupil 
whose bones have been broken, or who has 
been severely wounded by his master, in chas- 
tising him, shall have the right of quitting the 
school without paying the honorarium^'' 

We have already spoken of the rise and 
influence of the scholastic philosophy. Its 
quibbles and puerilities disgusted some of the 
most earnest and devoted men of the Romish 
Church, and the mystical philosophy was the 



168 HISTORY AND 

result of their protest against it. Among the 
most eminent advocates of this philosophy, 
were Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas a Kempis, 
John Tauler, and Jean Charlier de Gerson, 
who, though at first, from his position as 
chancellor of the University of Paris, disposed 
to the views of the schoolmen, later in life 
sympathized fully with the mystics. Several 
of these men were eminent for scholarship, 
and were successful teachers. Gerson wrote 
a work on the moral and religious education 
of children, which is still preserved. It is of 
little value, except as showing what were the 
views of enlightened men of that age on the 
subject of education. Vincent de Beauvais 
and Hugues de St. Victor, in the twelfth cen- 
tury, also wrote brief treatises on pedagogy. 
That of the latter, on the method of instruc- 
tion, though too essentially theological, is a 
work of considerable merit 

During this period (from the eleventh to 
the fourteenth century), female education was 
at a low ebb ; a few schools for the instruction 
of girls in reading were maintained in the 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 169 

larger cities, but beyond this they received 
very little mental culture. In the convents, 
they were taught to repeat their prayers, to 
practice embroidery and other needle-work, 
and, too often, to indulge in intrigues with 
the monks, A distinguished writer of the 
thirteenth century defines the proper educa- 
tion of woman, as "knowing how to pray to 
God, to love man, to knit and to sew." From 
the time when the gifted but ill-fated Heloise, 
in the twelfth century, taught to her nuns the 
Greek and Latin classics and the sciences then 
known, to the latter part of the fifteenth cen- 
tury. Western Europe furnishes no female name 
renowned for learning, except that of Christina 
of Pisa (1363-1431). In the Eastern Empire, 
the names of the Empress Eudocia and Anna 
Comnena show that, in the court circles at 
least, the culture of the intellect was not 
deemed inappropriate to woman. 



CHAPTEK XIY. 

Chivalry, and its influence upon education. — The celebration of the 
deeds of its heroes in song. — Troubadours, Trouveres, and Minne- 
singers. — Chansons and sirventes. — Eevival of literature in Italy in 
the fourteenth century. — Fonnative influence on the languages of 
Europe. — Emigration of Chrysoloras and other eminent Greek 
teachers to Southern Europe.— Prevalence of the study of classic 
Greek. — Vittorino da Feltre, one of the most eminent teachers of 
the age. — The patronage of letters by the Medici and other Italian 
sovereigns. — Eminent scholars and teachers in Italy. — Gerard Groot 
and the Brethren of the Common Life, — Establishment of the 
schools of Eton and Winchester in England. 

There remains to be noticed still one more 
source of educational influence affecting this 
period, before we speak of the revival of 
letters, which commenced in the fourteenth 
century — viz. : chivalry, and the literature of 
the Troubadours, Trouveres, Minnesingers, and 
bards, which grew naturally out of it. The 
highest development of chivalry was the result 
of the Crusades ; it had existed before the first 
of them, and was probably an institution of 
Moorish origin ; but in the sacrifices, the toils. 



172 HISTORY AND 

sufferings, bravery, and heroism of the knights 
of the Crusades, it reached its culmination. 

The education of the knight was rather 
physical and moral than intellectual. Many 
of the most noble and distinguished knights 
could not read ; still more of their number 
could not write ; but all, at least in the early 
days of chivalry, had so cultivated their physi- 
cal powers, as to be able to endure hardships, 
to undergo long and fierce contests, to make 
light of wounds, and to be agile, and skillful in 
the use of weapons and the management of 
their steeds. They had also learned to be 
courteous to the weak, to entertain a Platonic 
affection for some one or more of the fair sex, 
whose honor, purity, and beauty they main- 
tained against all comers, to succor the feeble 
and distressed, and to regard, with the highest 
reverence, the virtues of truth, honor, and 
chastity. 

It was natural that the virtues and noble 

deeds of such men should be embalmed in 

5ong; and, in that age, it was considered to 

irgue no lack of modesty on the part of the 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 173 

hero, if lie recounted, iu the soft ProveiiQal 
tongue, or in the Italian language, equally- 
fitted for song, the deeds of daring he had 
attempted, and the victories he had Y\^on. 

Those v^ho wooed the fair, whose colors 
they had worn, with their sonnets, in which 
amatory verse mingled with the narration of 
their deeds, were, in the Langue d'Oc or Pro- 
vencal language, called Trouhadours j in the 
Langue d'Oil, Trouveres ^ and among the Ger- 
mans, Minnesingers (Minnesanger), After a 
time these songs were divided into two classes 
— the chansons^ or amatory songs, and the 
sirventes, or songs of a warlike, and sometimes 
of a satiric, or even didactic character. The 
character of this poetry is not very high, 
probably owing to the fact that its authors 
were mostly illiterate ; but among the trouba- 
dours were found the most powerful monarchs 
and the most intellectual men of the eleventh 
and twelfth centuries, Frederic Barbarossa, 
Richard Coeur de Lion, several of the kings of 
France, the Comte de Provence, and man 
others of similar rank, being among the nun 



174: HISTORY AND 

ber; and not a few of their productions are 
devoted to the subject of the education of 
knights, cavaliers, and high-born dames. 

The overwhelming corruption which fol- 
lowed the Crusades, however, soon dragged 
down, to its own level, the lofty principles of 
chivalry ; the platonic love of its earlier days 
subsided into a grosser passion, its honor 
dwindled into mere courtesy, and its brave 
defence of the weak and the distressed into 
the raids and conflicts of civil war. The 
lessons of obedience, truth, honor, and fidelity, 
which the chevalier had learned in his various 
service of page, esquire, and knight, were no 
more taught, and chivalry at last grew to be a 
subject for the ridicule of brilliant wits. Long 
ere this its literature had degenerated, and 
the chansons and sirventes of the earlier times 
were replaced by odes and songs too gross to 
be tolerated. 

The fourteenth century was remarkable as 
the period when the languages of Europe 
attained a more perfect development, and 
became fixed in substantially their present 



PEOGEESS OF EDUCATION. 175 

forms. The Italian, now universally acknowl- 
edged the best adapted of them all, for poetry, 
improvisation, and song, first showed its won- 
derful flexibility in the writings of Dante 
Alighieri, Petrarch, and Boccacio, during that 
century ; the Spanish did not develop its full 
powers till a century later; the French was, 
under the fostering care of the University of 
Paris, rapidly improving as an admirable 
medium for earnest debate and animated 
conversation ; the German, with its Suabian 
element largely increased by the popular 
songs of the Minnesingers, was taking form 
and shape to become, a hundred and fifty 
years later, the vehicle of the vigorous elo- 
quence of the Reformers; while the English 
was almost created, in its written form, by the 
genius of Chaucer. Hitherto, these languages 
could hardly be said to have had any gram- 
matical principles ; the attempt to bend them 
to the old Latin rules had introduced so many 
anomalies, that the task of adhering to gram- 
matical constructions was beyond the ability 
of most writers ; but, after the advent of th 



176 HISTOKY AND 

writers we have named, new views prevailed, 
and the lajiguages were thenceforth subordi- 
nated only to rules drawn from the most 
natural construction of each. 

The tottering condition of the Eastern Em- 
pire caused the more eminent of its scholars 
(and the last century of its existence was 
notable for quite a number of these) to mi- 
grate to Italy, and there expand the knowl- 
edge of its language and literature. Prominent 
among them, as successful teachers, were the 
brothers John and Emmanuel Chrysoloras, 
who came to Florence in 1397, and there 
taught the Greek classics and the Platonic 
philosophy. 

At that period, very few of the best scholars 
of Western Europe were familiar with the 
Greek, and fewer still knew any thing of 
Plato. But the constant immigration of 
learned Greeks into Italy and France, awak- 
ened enthusiasm in the study of both the 
language and the philosophy, and led to the 
collection and transcription of many Greek 
and liatin manuscripts, which, up to that 



PEOGEESS OF EDUCATION. 1T7 

period, had remained unknown in the cells 
and dungeons of the monasteries; yet, for 
nearly half a century later, Greek was taught 
in the universities only by emigrants from 
Greece, — Gregory of Tiferno, in 1458, being 
the first teacher of Greek, in the University of 
Paris, who was not himself a Greek. 

Among the most eminent teachers of the 
period of which we are treating, for his 
attainments in science, his intelligent views in 
regard to instruction, and his practical tact as 
a teacher, was Vittorino Rambaldini da Feltre, 
born 1378, who taught in the University of 
Padua, and subsequently at Venice and Man- 
tua, It has seldom been the lot of a teacher, 
who himself wrote nothing on the subject of 
education, to be so honored by after ages for 
his success in teaching. Several of the Italian 
writers give us copious accounts of his system 
of education. He deemed it the duty of the 
teacher to exercise a constant supervision 
over his pupils, and hence he lived with them, 
and ate at the same table, which was spread 

with wholesome but plain food. He organ- 
s'' 



1Y8 HISTORY AND 

ized a system of gymnastic exercises, and 
enforced their regular practice. He taught 
the rudiments of science very thoroughly, and 
to his older pupils gave instruction in rhetoric, 
mathematics, and ethics. 

In a corrupt age, he was exceedingly strict 
in regard to the morals of those under his 
charge, and appealed in all cases to their own 
moral sense of the quality of their actions. 
He studied carefully the temper, disposition, 
and abilities of each, that he might be able to 
direct them in their studies and in the selec- 
tion of a professional course. In his govern- 
ment heVas mild but firm, and won the love 
and friendship of his pupils. Among the 
distinguished teachers and writers on educa- 
tion, of the fifteenth century, in Italy, were 
Peter Paul Yerger (died 1428), Yalla, the 
most accomplished Latin scholar of his time ; 
Poggio Bracciolini, also an eminent Latinist; 
Mapheus Vegino (died 1458), and Eneas Syl- 
vius, afterward Pope Pius II. 

All of these wrote extensively on educa- 
tional subjects, and Valla and Eneas Sylvius 



PEOGEESS OF EDUCATION. 179 

prepared valuable text-books, — the former in 
Latin grammar and the Latin classics; the 
latter in grammar, rhetoric, and universal 
history. Purbach, Regiomontanus, and Nico- 
las Cusanus were the first to promote the 
study of the higher mathematics, and to pre- 
pare logarithmic tables. Several of the Italian 
sovereigns, during this century, were eminent 
patrons of literature and science ; especially 
the Pope Nicolas V., the founder of the Vati- 
can library ; Frederic of Aragon, king of 
Naples; and, above all, the Medici family, and 
particularly Cosmo, and Lorenzo the Magnifi- 
cent. It was owing mainly to their exertions 
and those of the other sovereigns of Italian 
States, prompted by rivalry, that Italy, during 
the fifteenth century, maintained the pre-emi- 
nence in arts, science, and literature. 

Among the most eminent men of learning, 
whom this wise and noble policy drew to the 
Italian cities, were Politian, the author of the 
Miscellanea, and professor of Greek and Latin 
eloquence at Florence in 1483 ; Christopher 
Landino, Hermolaus Barbarus, and, pre-emi- 



180 mSTOEY AND 

nent over tliem all in genius and intellectual 
power, Lionarclo da Vinci. In Spain, toward 
tlie close of the century, Lebrexa Nebrissensis, 
by his own extensive classical learning, and 
his lectures at Seville, Salamanca, Alcala, and 
other Spanish universities, effected a reform in 
classical studies. He also prepared valuable 
grammars in the Castilian, Latin, Greek, and 
Hebrew languages. 

In Holland, the prevalence of ignorance and 
vice led one of the noblest men in the Romish 
Church in that country, Gerard de Groot 
(1340-1384), to organize the order of Brethren 
of the Common Life^ an association resembling, 
more nearly perhaps than any other, that of 
the Brethren of the Inner Mission, founded, 
during the present century, by Dr. J. H. 
Wichern, This order had little in common 
with the mendicant friars; its members usually 
took no vows, provided for their few and 
simple wants by their daily labor, and devoted 
themselves to the work of teaching and re- 
forming the ignorant and vicious. The times 
were favorable to such an organization, and, in 



PKOGEESS OF EDUCATION. 181 

a few years, they had more than a hundred 
congregations, and in less than a century their 
schools were to be found in most of the larger 
cities of Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, 'and 
the Low Countries. They were opposed by 
the mendicant friars, but sustained by the 
popes. Deventer, in Holland, was their prin- 
cipal seat, and from thence, after the death of 
Gerard, Florence de Radewin, his associate 
and successor, continued to direct them until 
his death. In England, the establishment of 
the great schools of Winchester and Eton, as 
well as of Winchester College and several 
others at Oxford, belong to the latter part of 
the fifteenth century. 



I 



CHAPTEK XY. 

Moral condition of Europe at the close of the fourteenth century 
• and the commencement of the fifteenth. — Invention of the art of 
printing. — Discovery of America. — Influence of these events in 
promoting education. — Eminent scholars and teachers in Germany 
in the fifteenth century. — The dawn of the Eeformation in the 
sixteenth century. — Erasmus, Luther, Melancthon, Zuinglius, and 
Calvin as educators. — Abundance of Luther's labors for the general 
difi'usion of education. 

While, in several of the countries of Europe, 
considerable intellectual progress had been 
made, the fourteenth century was, in morals, 
the darkest of the dark ages. The restraining 
influence of chivalry was gone, as that of 
religion had long been ; the poverty, lawless- 
ness, and evil manners which had resulted 
from the Crusades, had fully wrought their 
direful results ; the Roman pontiffs, the cardi- 
nals, bishops, and inferior clergy, and, above 
all, the monastic orders, set examples, which 
the laity were not slow to follow, of participa- 
tion in murder, violence, and lust ; indulgences 
for the commission of any crime, except her- 



184 HISTORY AND 

esy, could be purchased for a trifling sum; 
and over the extensive realms which acknowl- 
edged the power of the Papal See, and the 
hardly less extensive regions which yielded to 
the spiritual dominion of the Greek Patriarch, 
vice and corruption reigned in forms so loath- 
some and vile that it seemed that nothing less 
than the waters of a second deluge, or the still 
more effectual purification of an all-consuming 
fire, could purge the continent of its guilt. 

Two events hastened the upheaval for which 
the nations were looking: the invention of 
printing, about 1450, and the discovery of 
America, in 1492. Hitherto, books had been 
scarce and costly ; multiplied, often at the 
expense of correctness, by the slow process of 
copying, they were beyond the reach of all 
but the wealthy few ; the peasantry of Europe 
were rarely or never taught to read, and if 
they had been, could not have procured 
books ; — but, under the rapid multiplication of 
books by the new art, they were to become 
the property and joy of the masses; and as 
the discovery of America opened new fields of 



PEOGEESS OF EDUCATION. 185 

enterprise and new sources of wealth to 
crowded Europe, men of intelligence, and at 
least of moderate education, were in demand, 
to occupy the newly-discovered lands, and 
lead the way to richer harvests of wealth 
and fame. 

Amid the general dissoluteness of morals, 
there were a few noble spirits, who struggled 
to promote in the minds of their pupils, and 
in the communities in which they dwelt, 
higher aspirations and nobler aims. Such 
were Rodolphe Langius of Westphalia, Mau- 
rice of Spielberg, who gave the school at 
Emmerich a high reputation ; Louis Dringen- 
berg of Selestat, Dalberg, Conrad Celtes, 
Bebel, Beatus Rhenanus, Wimpheling, Pirck- 
heimer, and, a little later, Bishop John of 
Dahlberg, Rodolphe Agricola of Groningen, 
to whom, and to Pedro Ponce cle Leon, a 
Spanish Benedictine monk, belongs the honor 
of having first successfully attempted the in- 
struction of deaf mutes ; these and others, who 
formed a scientific alliance which, under the 
name of the Association of the RMne^ accom- 



186 IIISTOEY AND 

plishecl mucli for education in Germany in tlie 
latter part of the fifteenth century. Reuchlin, 
too, though perhaps not a professed teacher 
till near the close of his life, yet rendered 
good service to classical education, and, by 
his controversy with Pfefiferkorn and the in- 
quisitor Hochstraten, gave a powerful impulse 
to that freedom of thought which was so soon 
to revolutionize Christendom. In the first half 
of the sixteenth century, the Reformation 
had commenced in Germany, under the labors 
of Luther, Melancthon, Ecolampadius, Justus 
Jonas, and others ; and in Switzerland and 
France, under Zuinglius and Calvin. 

All these men were, for their time, brilliant 
and accomplished scholars, and most of them 
had been engaged in teaching in some of 
the universities of their respective countries. 
Erasmus, too, though a man of more timid 
spirit than the Reformers, was eminent as a 
teacher, and exerted a powerful influence in 
the promotion of education. Bud^us, uni- 
versally regarded as the most profound Greek 
scholar of his time in Europe, also accom- 



PEOGRESS OF EDUCATION. 187 

plished much for education in France, both by 
his Greek commentaries and his labors as a 
teacher. It was reserved, however, for Luther 
and Melancthon to inaugurate a new era in 
the cause of education. 

Hitherto there had been, as we have ah'eady 
said, no education for the masses ; but it was 
a necessary corollary from Luther's religious 
principles, that the whole people must be 
taught, that they might read the Scriptures: 
hitherto, the teaching of the universities, of 
the gymnasia, and of the trivial schools, had 
been mainly directed to the cultivation of the 
memory ; the pupil was not required to reason 
upon, not even to understand, many of the 
lessons which he was taught ; the memory 
was taxed with the recollection of vast quan- 
tities of rubbish, of little service, either when 
committed or afterward; but Luther insisted 
on the development of thought and the culture 
of the reasoning powers ; and, though himself 
versed in all the subtleties of the scholastic 
philosophy, he did not deem it well suited to 
cultivate and invigorate the minds of youth, 



188 HISTORY AND 

and therefore denounced it with his usual 
energy and vehemence. 

In 1527, he and his friend Melancthon were 
directed, by the Elector of Saxony, to investi- 
gate the condition of the schools of that 
country, and, if necessary, to reorganize them. 
This, by their joint labor, was accomplished, 
and their plan of instruction published, which 
provided for the education of children of all 
classes and both sexes, in the elementary 
studies, and for a more extended course for 
those who gave promise of intellectual ability. 
But Luther's views were too comprehensive to 
be restricted within the limits of the electorate 
of Saxony. 

In 1524, he had published '"''an address to the 
councilmen of all the toiuns of Germany^ calling 
upon them to establish and sustain Christian 
schools;" and still earlier (in 1520), he had 
published a plan for reforming the universities, 
with whose methods of study and course of 
instruction he was greatly dissatisfied. In all 
his educational writings (and they were 
numerous), he inculcated strongly the neces- 



PEOGKESS OF EDUCATION, 189 

sity of a more thorough classical culture, and 
also of extended mathematical study. 

The study of Hebrew, which, if ever taught 
in the German universities, had been discon- 
tinued for a long time, was, at his earnest 
entreaty, commenced and carried to such 
extent as the imperfect text-books of the time 
would allow. History, too, was thenceforth 
introduced into the curriculum of study, and 
the scholastic philosophy, and the study of the 
canon and imperial law, were discarded. In 
all these reforms he was powerfully seconded 
by Melancthon, and their united influence 
induced the changes they desired in many of 
the German universities, though the scholastic 
philosophy was slow in yielding to a better 
system. 

In addition to these labors in behalf of edu- 
cation, Luther also appealed to the magistrates 
of the German cities, to establish libraries for 
the benefit of scholars; and to his efforts is 
due the foundation of some of the best public 
libraries of Germany. Melancthon is deserving 
of as high praise as Luther, for his zeal in the 



190 HISTOKr AND 

cause of education, and of the added honor of 
having been the first to instruct his pupils in 
the art of teaching, causing them to give 
instruction in his presence, correcting their 
errors, and inculcating, both by precept and 
example, the principles of skillful teaching. 
• Zuinglius accomplished less for the cause of 
education than some of his brother reformers, 
not because his zeal was less, or his capacity 
inferior, but because his position was different, 
and his early death gave him less opportunity 
of usefulness. He, however, reformed and 
elevated the Academy of Zurich to the rank 
and character of a university, and gave it such 
impulses in the right direction, that it has 
ever since maintained a high rank among the 
educational institutions of Switzerland. A 
single essay on the instruction of youth is 
found among his published works. 

Calvin, the mightiest intellect among the 
Reformers, was also a zealous friend of educa- 
tion, urging the instruction of children, and 
giving not only his powerful influence, but 
his personal labors, to the establishment of 



PEOGEESS OF EDUCATION. 191 

the Academy of Geneva. His plan of gov- 
ernment for Geneva also included the organi- 
zation of schools for the training of children 
and youth. 



CHAPTEK XYI. 

John Stitem:, the most eminent teacher in Germany in the sixteenth 
century. — Trotzendorf and other eminent cotemporaries of Sturm. 
— Progress of education in England. — The organization of schools 
and a system of education by the Jesuits. — Principal features of 
this system. — M. Villers' characterization of it. — Text-books used 
by the Jesuits. — The good results they did accomplish. — Decline 
of the best Protestant schools. 

The most eminent name connected with 
education in Germany, in tlie sixteenth cen- 
tury, is that of John Sturm (1507-1589). 
Trained at first in one of the schools of the 
"Brethren of the Common Life," at Liege, 
and afterward a student and teacher at the 
University of Louvain, he removed, in 1529, 
to Paris, where he taught, with high reputa- 
tion, for eight years ; when he was invited, by 
the magistrates of Strasburg, to organize and 
conduct a gymnasium, or academy of high 
order, in that city. He removed thither in 
1537, and, for forty-one years, remained at the 
head of the schoolhe had organized. 



194 mSTOKY AND 

He possessed, perhaps in a greater degree 
than any man of his time, that combination of 
an enthusiastic love for teaching with great 
executive powers, which made him the admi- 
ration of the many eminent men with whom he 
was on terms of intimacy and correspondence. 
His instructions to his teachers, and his exami- 
nation papers for several years, are still in 
existence ; and they give evidence of a more 
thorough and systematic study of the classics 
than had been previously attempted in the 
middle ages. He divided his school into ten 
classes, each composed of several clecurice or 
tens, and placed a teacher over each class. 
His course of instruction was steadily pro- 
gressive, from the tenth class up to the first, 
and his examinations severe and critical. In 
1578, more than one thousand pupils attended 
his instruction. His influence in the thorough 
organization of gymnasia, throughout Ger- 
many, was very great. 

Cotemporary with Sturm was Friedland, 
better known by his patronymic of Trotzen- 
dorf, rector of the academy at Goldberg, in 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 195 

Silesia, whose methods of instruction and gov- 
ernment were novel and efficient. He adhered 
to the Socratic method in teaching, and was, 
so far as we know, the first teacher who ever 
committed the government of his pupils to 
themselves, organizing them into a court, or 
senate, to decide on the offences conimitted 
and the punishment they merited; the mem- 
bers of this senate being the pupils whose 
behavior, for a month previous, had been most 
exemplary. 

To him, too, belongs the honor of the lirst 
inception of that monitorial system which, long 
afterward, received its full development from 
Lancaster and others. Beside Trotzendorf, 
Bugenhagen at Hamburg, Spalatin at Alten- 
burg, Neander at Nordhausen, and Sylburgius 
and Heyden at Nuremburg, were distinguish- 
ing themselves and benefiting their generation 
by the introduction of more rational methods 
of teaching, and by the development of a 
purer classical taste and a more extended 
course of study. 

Under the united labors of these men and 



196 HISTORY AND 

those whom they had trained as teachers, the 
Latin authors of the Augustan age became the 
text-books, in the place of works written in 
barbarous, monkish Latin; and Greek was as 
thoroughly understood in Germany as it had 
been, the previous century, in Italy. Indeed 
Germany, before the close of the sixteenth 
century, could boast of more eminent scholars 
than any other country of Europe. 

In England, too, the long period of darkness 
and ignorance was passing away; and under 
the fostering care of Grocyn, Cheke, Smith, 
afterward secretary of state to Queen Eliza- 
beth ; Sir Thomas Elyot ; and Lily, Cox, Udal, 
and Norvell, eminent teachers of the time ; 
and, a little later, Roger Ascham (the friend 
and correspondent of Sturm), Cecil, and others, 
the schools and colleges of England gradually 
took a higher position. Ascham was one of 
the most learned men of the age, and, in his 
little treatise, " The Scholemaster^'' sought to 
introduce better methods of instruction and 
discipline than those usually employed at that 
period. 



PEOGRESS OF EDUCATION. 197 

The extraordinary progress which was made 
by the Protestant countries in education, and 
the great numbers of students, from all coun- 
tries, who sought instruction in their gymnasia 
and universities, induced the conviction, on the 
part of the intelligent adherents of the Romish 
communion, that unless there were a corre- 
sponding advance in their schools and univer- 
sities, there would be a very serious defection, 
both in numbers and influence, from their 
ranks. The monastic schools were urged, but 
without effect, to introduce improvements and 
occupy a higher position ; even the schools of 
the Brethren of the Common Life, or Hiero- 
nymians^ as they were now called, in the lapse 
of two centuries had lost much of their early 
reputation. 

It was at this juncture that the Society of 
Jesus, organized, in 1540, by Ignatius Loyola, 
to oppose the heresy of the Reformation, first 
attempted the organization of schools ; and 
this, like all their other enterprises, was 
crowned with speedy success. The Jesuit, 
adroit, supple, versatile, and accomplished, was 



198 HISTOEY AND 

well qualified for the task before him, in which 
it was of quite as much importance to know 
what not to teach, as on what topics instruction 
should be imparted. 

An eminent Catholic writer, M. Villers, in a 
work crowned by the Institute of France, says 
of their instruction: "It was their maxim to 
cultivate, and push to the highest possible 
degree of perfection, every kind of knowledge 
which would not result in any immediate 
danger for the hierarchical power, and to 
acquire thereby the esteem and renown of 
being the most accomplished and capable 
scholars of the Christian world. This suprem- 
acy once attained, it was easy for them either 
to paralyze those branches of knowledge 
which would bear fruit dangerous to the 
papacy, or to trim, direct, and graft them 
according to their will." Their text-books 
were all prepared by members of the order, 
who, with the utmost skill, molded the facts 
of history, the reasonings of philosophy, and 
the principles of theology, to suit their 
purpose. 



PEOGRESS OF EDUCATION. 199 

The result, to their pupils, was a brilliant,, 
but one-sided education, "fitting them," says 
M. Yillers, "for becoming polished writers, 
scholars, orators, good Roman Catholics, Jesu- 
its, even, if they wished, but not me?i, in the 
full acceptation of the term ; and he who be- 
came a man under their discipline, became so 
independently of it, and in spite of it." 

From the Ratio et institutio studiorum Soci'e- 
tatis Jesu^ published in 1599, under the sanc- 
tion of Claudius de Aquaviya, then general of 
the order, and which, with slight modifications, 
is still the educational system of the Jesuit 
schools, we gather that Latin was taught in 
these schools, both as a written and spoken 
language, to the entire disuse of the vernac- 
ular, for the use of which penalties were 
inflicted; that the only classic Latin authors 
used were Cicero and Virgil, and that, for the 
rest of the Latin instruction, the pupils were 
taught from the Latin works of Medieeval 
writers ; that Greek was also taught, but only 
from the works of Chrysostom and the other 
Christian fathers; that beyond these liumani- 



200 IlllSTORY AND 

ties^ as they were called, there were no other 
studies in the preparatory or lower classes, 
except grammar (Latin and Greek) and rhet- 
oric. In Greek grammar the Jesuit fathers 
prepared a very good text-book ; in Latin, the 
old Grammars of Donatus and Priscian were 
used ; neither history, geography, mathematics, 
nor physical science were taught. This course 
occupied six years. 

The higher course consisted of — First, Phi- 
losophy, which occupied two or three years, 
and which was taught from Aristotle, — the 
Latin version translated from the Arabic of 
Averroes, which had been translated from the 
Syriac, and this from the Greek (as yet there 
was not known to exist any direct version 
of Aristotle from Greek into Latin, or any of 
the vernacular tongues of Western Europe). 
Aristotle was interpreted according to Thomas 
Aquinas, the great light of the scholastic phi- 
losophy. Second, Instruction in morals, from 
the ethics of Aristotle. Third, Mathematics, em- 
bracing the elements of Euclid and a few of the 
simpler problems of mathematical geography. 



PEOGEESS or EDUCATION. 201 

Then followed a course of theology for those 
who were deemed suitable candidates for it. 
Here, so far as the Scriptures were concerned, 
the Vulgate was the guide, to which all else 
must be made to correspond; even the He- 
brew Scriptures must be read only by the 
Vulgate. In scholastic theology, Aquinas was 
again the authority, from whom no deviation 
was allowed. In casuistry, the genius of the 
order shone out with peculiar brilliancy, and 
for the professors of this branch its ablest men 
were selected. 

Emulation was the great incentive to prog- 
ress among the pupils, and the shameful sys- 
tem of delation — that is, acting the part of the 
spy and tale-bearer, for the purpose of gaining 
promotion — was regarded as praiseworthy ; 
corporeal punishment was seldom inflicted, 
and only by persons not members of the order, 
lest the pupils should be prejudiced against 
their teachers. The examinations and distri- 
butions of prizes were conducted publicly, and 
with great pomp. Such Avas the system which, 
in 1600, had in France alone two hundred 



202 mSTOEY OF EDUCATION. 

schools. Faulty as it was in many particulars, 
it produced good Latin scholars for that age ; 
and some of the pupils of its schools have 
hardly been surpassed since that time, in their 
command of a pure and polished Latin style. 

With the death of the leading Reformers, 
the literary as well as theological activity, 
which had inspired the ranks of the Protes- 
tants, seemed gradually to wane. The Jesuits 
won many of them back to the Catholic faith, 
and the most celebrated of their schools lost, 
wholly or in part, their reputation. 



CHAPTEE XYII. 

The Novum Organon of Lord Bacon.— The era of the Classicists. 
— Kabelais, Montaigne. — Peter Eamus and the Aristotelian philos- 
ophy. — Progress in the higher mathematics and in physical science. 
— The improvements in geographical science. — Stephen's Thesavrus. 
— Constantin, Calepin, and Scapula's dictionaries. — Wolfgang Ea- 
TicH. — His new plans, and their faults. — John Amos Comenius, de- 
serving of high honor for his labors in the cause of education. — His 
Janua Linguarum Beserata. — His Orbis Sensualiwn P ictus, the first 
illustrated school-book. — His other educational works. 

The intellect of Europe had now been thor- 
oughly roused, and the bounds of human 
knowledge were constantly increasing during 
the latter half of the sixteenth century. It 
was at this period that Lord Bacon's Novum 
Organon^ perhaps the grandest contribution 
ever made to science, was published; on the 
continent of Europe the most eminent classical 
scholars were endeavoring to correct and im- 
prove the text of the Roman and Greek 
classics, — and most renowned among these, 
were the Scaligers of Leyden, Casaubon of 
Geneva, Paulus and Aldus Manutius, and 



204 HISTORY AND 

Sigoniiis of Italy, Miiretus of Paris, Osorius of 
Portugal, and Sanchez and Alvarez of Spain. 

In England, Sir Henry Saville, and Camden, 
the author of the Brittania^ worthily main- 
tained the English reputation for classical 
scholarship ; and Andrew Melville, the princi- 
pal of the University of Glasgow, commenced, 
in 1575, a thorough reform of that university, 
which, in a few years, drew students thither 
from all parts of Europe. 

The works of Rabelais, and the essays of 
Michel de Montaigne, exerted a powerful 
influence in molding the plans of education 
of the succeeding age ; and Peter Ramus 
assaulted, with great vigor and effect, the 
Aristotelian philosophy. The principles of 
the higher mathematics, though partially dis- 
covered in the previous century, were first 
rendered generally available by Tartaglia, 
Cardan, Yieta, and perhaps also Pelletier and 
Bombelli, in algebraic science ; Commandin, 
Clavius, and Maurolycus of Messina, in geom- 
etry ; and Joachim Rhoeticus, in trigonometry. 
The Copernican theory, though far from being 



PROGEESS OF EDUCATION. 205 

generally received, yet numbered among its 
advocates Rhoeticus, Reinold, Rothman, Chris- 
tian Wursticius, Maestlin, and the English 
philosophers Wright and Gilbert, as well as 
the far more illustrious names of Benedetti 
and Galileo. Meanwhile, the Danish astrono- 
mer Tycho-Brahe was astonishing the world 
by his astronomical discoveries, and the bold- 
ness and daring of his theories; and Kepler 
was beginning those researches which have 
made his name immortal. 

Physical science was more carefully and 
extensively cultivated ; the laws of optics and 
mechanics were unfolded by Maurolycus, Bap- 
tista Porta, Guido Ubaldi, Peruzzi, Albrecht 
Durer, and others ; those of statics and hydro- 
statics, by Galileo and Stevinus ; while Gilbert 
described the use of the magnet. In zoology, 
Conrad Gesner, the most universally learned 
man of his time, Belon, Rondelet, Aldrovandus, 
and Salviani were reducing the chaos of earlier 
writers to order, and adding new genera and 
species, — the results of the descriptions and 
collections of the American adventurers ; and 



206 HISTORY AND 

in botany, Maranta, Turner, Lobel, Clusius, 
Caesalpin, Gesner, Dodoens, Dalechampe, Bar- 
bier, and Gerard were engaged in a similar 
work. Of these last, Clusius was by far the 
ablest, and has left his impress upon the 
science. 

In geography, the expeditions to America 
had given a new impulse to authorship. Maps 
began to come into more general use, and one 
hundred and fifty treatises on geography were 
published in the last half of the century. 
Ramusio, Ortelius, Botero, and Mercator are 
all names which have come down to our own 
time. It was partly, no doubt, owing to the 
rapid progress of discovery, that greater atten- 
tion was paid to philology, and that the Ori- 
ental tongues, as well as the languages of the 
tribes that inhabited the new continent, began 
to be the objects of study. 

The seventeenth century, though beginning 
with extensive and protracted civil wars, 
which broke up the schools, and reduced the 
people to poverty, misery, and semi-barbarism, 
was yet signalized by the overthrow of old 



PKOGEESS OF EDUCATION. 207 

methods of instruction, — especially in the 
matter of memorizing all lessons, without 
regard to their meaning, a practice which had 
come down from the monastic schools of the 
earlier ages. 

A great evil in the classical schools of the 
previous century, had been the lack of good 
dictionaries and grammars. This lack had 
been, in a good degree, supplied in the latter 
part of the sixteenth century, by the Tlie- 
saurus of Stephens, the new editions of Con- 
stantin and Calepin, and the abridgment of 
Scapula ; and the grammars of Ramus, Sylbur- 
gius, Caninius, and Michael Neander; — and 
with these, and other improved text-books, 
the desire began to manifest itself for im- 
proved methods of teaching. 

Wolfgang Ratich (1571-1635) was the first 
to assail the old system and propose new plans 
of instruction ; but, though a man of learning, 
he was too conceited and willful, and his plans 
were too revolutionary and impracticable to 
meet with any considerable success. He was 
better qualified to pull down than to build 



208 HISTOKY AND 

up. His extravagant promises contrasted so 
strongly with his meager results, that even his 
well-wishers came to regard him as almost a 
charlatan. He required the teacher to read 
over the same lessons to the child again and 
again, explaining and analyzing every sen- 
tence with care ; while the child must sit still, 
and listen in silence, — and this, whether the 
lesson were a translation, or a chapter of some 
scientific text-book. In the study of Terence, 
for example, each section was to be read over 
by the teacher to his pupils nine times, three 
times in German and six in Latin. In the 
hands of Kromayer, Helwig, and some of his 
other followers, who modified his plans, and 
made them more practical, the system of 
Ratich attained to a moderate degree of 
success. 

The most eminent educator of the seven- 
teenth century, however, was John Amos 
CoMENius, bishop of Comna, in Moravia (1592 
-1671). Comenius saw, more clearly than any 
of his predecessors, what was necessary for the 
improvement of education ; and his books and 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 209 

principles have exerted a powerful influence 
over the educational progress of Central and 
Northern Europe, even to the present day. 
He was the first to understand the importance 
of applying the inductive system of Lord 
Bacon to instruction, and also the first to 
apply pictures to the illustration of school 
studies. 

His first work, Janua Linguarum Reserata^ 
was an attempt to teach Latin (and was 
equally applicable to other languages), by 
means of sentences and paragraphs, containing 
instruction in the elements of all the sciences, 
each sentence containing Latin words in gen- 
eral use, and these words not being repeated, 
except when used in a diiferent sense. It 
contained one hundred chapters and one thou- 
sand sentences, and thus taught about eight 
thousand words. 

He begins with a prefatory chapter, explain- 
ing his object and design ; the second chapter 
treats of the creation of the world ; and in the 
chapters following, history, arts, and sciences 
are discussed, the ninety-ninth chapter termi- 



210 HISTORY AND 

nating with tlie end of the world, and the one-, 
hundredth giving his farewell advice to the 
reader. This was first published in 1631, but 
was subsequently much enlarged ; and, follow- 
ing out his original conceit, he prepared a 
Yestihulum^ of fifty chapters and five hundred 
sentences, for the use of younger scholars, to 
precede it, and an Atrium^ of one hundred 
chapters and one thousand sentences, to fol- 
low it. 

The Janua was translated into twelve Eu- 
ropean and several Asiatic languages, and 
enjoyed a high popularity. His Orhis Sen- 
sualium Pidus^ published in 1657, enjoyed a 
still higher renown. The text was much the 
same with the Janua^ being intended as a kind 
of elementary encyclopedia ; but it differed 
from all previous school-books, in being illus- 
trated with pictures, on copper and wood, of 
the various topics discussed in it. This book 
was universally popular. In those portions of 
Germany where the schools had been broken 
up by the " Thirty years' war," mothers taught 
their children from its pages. Corrected and 



PEOGKESS OF EDUCATION. 211 

amended by later editors, it continued, for 
nearly two hundred years, to be a text-book 
of the German schools. 

His MetJiodus Novissima is also a work of 
great value to teachers. It is needless, per- 
haps, to say that, at the present day, Comenius' 
method of teaching languages has been aban- 
doned, and wiser counsels adopted ; but his 
system was a great advance upon that of 
Ratich, and a still greater upon that of the 
teachers of the previous century. He does 
not seem to have been fully appreciated by 
later English writers, though, during his life- 
time, he was repeatedly solicited, by the 
highest authorities, to make England his home, 
and to undertake the reformation of her 
schools. 



CHAPTER XYIII. 

The Jansenists, and tlieir labors in the cause of education. — Eminent 
classical scholars of the seventeenth century. — Progress of literature 
in Europe during the century. — The School of Pietists. — Fenelon. 
— His Adventures of Telemachvs. — SpE^•ER. — The University of Halle. 
— Franoke. — His philanthropic zeal. — The orphan school, and the 
institutions connected with it. — Want of classic training, a defect in 
these schools. — Tendency to Phariseeism subsequently developed. 

The efforts of the Jansenists for the promo- 
tion of education, during the seventeenth 
century, deserve to be recorded. Jansenius 
was himself a successful teacher ; but the 
eminent men whose defence of his Augustinus 
led them to be called by his name, contended, 
from the shades of Port-Royal, with their 
formidable enemies, the Jesuits, in the cause of 
education, with an ability which deserved, 
though it did not attain, success. Antoine 
Arnauld, himself almost a prodigy of learning, 
found time, amid his other multifarious labors, 
to reorganize, on a plan of greater efficiency, 
and with a higher moral tone, several schools, 



214 HISTORY AND 

which attained a high reputation; and also, 
aided by some of his friends and pupils, to 
prepare several very good school-books. The 
Port-Royal Grammar, the joint work of himself 
and Lancelot, was a popular text-book for . 
more than a century. De Sacy, a nephew of 
Arnauld, was also eminent as a linguist. 

Among the Jesuits, Yiger and Labbe wrote, 
in the early part of the century, treatises of 
considerable merit on Greek grammar. Casau- 
bon of Geneva, who, in 1610, emigrated to 
England, stood pre-eminent in critical Greek 
learning. In Latin, Salmasius, a native of 
France, but, in the latter part of his life, a 
resident of Leyden, had no superior ; and after 
his death, the palm on the continent seemed 
to rest Avith the two Gronovii, father and son, 
and Gr^evius, all residents of Holland. 

In England, in the latter part of the century, 
we find the great name of Bentley, whose 
learning has hardly been surpassed since the 
century he adorned. Other names of eminent 
Latin scholars, some of whom did good service 
also in the cause of education, will readily 



PROGEESS OF EDUCATION. 215 

recur to the reader. Gruter, Heinsiiis, Grotius, 
Barthius, Ptigault, Scioppius, Vossius, and 
Charles Boyle were, perhaps, the most distm- 
guished. Few wrote Latin, either in prose or 
poetry, with greater elegance and force than 
John Milton. 

The series of classics prepared by about 
forty of the most eminent scholars of France, 
at the direction of Louis XIV., in usum Del- 
pliini^ possessed sufficient merit to be retained 
as classical text-books for more than one hun- 
dred and fifty years. In general literature, 
the seventeenth century was remarkable, above 
any that had proceded it, for the number of its 
eminent writers. 

In England, the great names of Shakspeare 
and Milton tower above those of any of their 
predecessors or cotemporaries ; while those 
who, in any previous period, would have been 
considered as occupying the first rank, may be 
numbered by scores : in France, Corneille, 
Balzac, Yoiture, Malherbe, Racine, Moliere, 
Boileau, La Fontaine, Fontenelle, and many 
others rendered the court of the " Grand 



216 HISTOllY AND 

Monarque^^ the home oi belles-lettres ^ in Spain, 
Cervantes, Lopez de Vega, Calderon, the Ar- 
gensolas, Villegas, and Gongora abundantly- 
vindicated the richness and beauty of the 
Castilian tongue ; in Italy, Salvator Rosa, 
Guidi, Filicaja, Marini, Tassoni, and Bonarelli 
attained hi^h distinction ; and the works of 
Opitz, in Germany, and Hooft, in Holland, are 
still read with pleasure. Nor was the period 
less remarkable " r its philosophers. 

No one centi^, y, since the Christian era, has 
produced four such men as Lord Bacon, Des- 
cartes, Locke, and Spinosa ; nor perhaps even 
the equals of Arnauld, Gassendi, Malebranche, 
Hobbes of Malmesbury, and Lord Herbert of 
Cherbury. 

Physical science had received a new impulse 
from the application to it of the inductive 
method; and jurisprudence, which had made 
but small progress since the promulgation of 
the Code Justinian, and the Capitularies of 
Charlemagne, seemed suddenly transformed 
into a new science, through the labors of Gro- 
tius, Suarez, Puffendorf, Locke, Leibnitz, and 



PEOGRESS OF EDUCATION. 217 

Godefroy. All this progress exerted its influ- 
ence upon the promotion of educatic : The 
universal activity of intellect stimulate'^ *o 
higher attainment, and to better methoa: of 
instruction. 

In the latter part of the century, several 
men of France, Germany, and Enp^'j,nd, became 
deeply interested in the promotion of educa- 
tion ; and, from the general similarity of their 
views and aims, writers o education have 
usually classed them together s the School of 
Pietists. In the loftiness of their ideas, the 
purity of their lives, and the benevolence of 
their labors, they remain, to this day, unsur- 
passed. Prominent among them were Fene- 
lon, archbishop of Cambray, in France ; Philip 
J. Spener, and Augustus Hermann Francke, of 
Germany. 

Fenelon (1651-1715), while yet young, 
wrote a treatise on the education of girls, 
which remains, to this day, a work of standard 
value in France. Subsequently appointed 
tutor of the grandsons of Louis XIY., one of 
whom was the heir-apparent to the throne, he 

10 



218 HISTORY AND 

displayed a skill, seldom equaled, in their 
training, and wrote for them some valuable 
worl^ text-books, the most celebrated of 

w"" ^xs Adventures of Telemachus, will 

aivvays be a classic, for the purity and beauty 
of its style, and its elevated moral tone. His 
"i^«5Zes," and his ^'■Dialogues of the Bead,^^ 
have also enjoyed a high reputation. Aside 
from these labors, he was persuaded, by Ma- 
dame de Maintenon, to draw up a system of 
education for her favorite female school of 
Saint Cyr. 

Spener (1635-1705) founded the University 
of Halle, and was for a time the tutor of the 
two sons of the Prince of Birkenfeld, — beyond 
which he did little directly in the way of 
teaching ; but he was the founder, among 
Protestants, of the sect of Pietists, and the 
friend and adviser of Francke, between whom 
and himself there existed the most cordial 
sympathy. 

Francke (1663-1727) was one of the most 
remarkable men of modern times, not so much 
for his talents — which, however, were respect- 



PROGEESS OF EDUCATION. 219 

able — as for his simple, earnest faith, and his 
entire devotion to the moral and religious 
education of the young. Chosen professor in 
the new University of Halle, and, at the same 
time, pastor of one of the poorest suburbs of 
that city, he soon resigned his professorship, 
and, though entirely destitute of property, 
devoted himself to the improvement of the 
intellectual and spiritual condition of the poor. 
With a capital of only seven florins, he com- 
menced his school for orphans, in 1694 ; 
and though straitened for means, he struggled 
on, till oftentimes, as he believed, in answer 
to his prayers, the necessary funds were sent 
to him. 

In 1705, his orphan house had one hundred 
boys and twenty-five girls under tuition; his 
seminary for teachers, who received their 
board free, had seventy-five pupils, — besides 
which, sixty-four very poor scholars were 
supported; a school for the children of citi- 
zens had eight hundred scholars and sixty- 
seven teachers; a Pcedagogium^ or school for 
the children of the nobility, had seventy 



220 HISTORY AND 

pupils ; the Oriental College, intended for the 
training of missionaries to India, eleven pupils ; 
a widows' house, four widows; and a book- 
store, printing-office, and apothecary's shop 
employed in all twenty-two persons. Twenty- 
two years later, there were more than twenty- 
five hundred persons — pupils, teachers, em- 
ployes, and pensioners — in his various estab- 
lishments. 

His seminary for teachers was probably the 
first distinct Normal school ever established. 
His orphan school, though perhaps not the 
first, for one at Rome claims an earlier date, 
was yet the most successful, and the model of 
most which have since been established. His 
instruction, though thorough in the studies 
undertaken, gave more predominance to moral 
culture, and to physical science, than to the 
ancient classics. Latin was carefully and well 
taught ; but in Greek, the New Testament was 
the only text-book ; and Hebrew was one of 
the studies of the regular course. 

The deportment of his students, serious, 
grave, and temperate, was in marked, perhaps 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 221 

too marked, contrast with that of the students 
of the other German gymnasia and univer- 
sities. The necessity of a change of heart, 
upon which he insisted, for successful scholar- 
ship, though resulting, on his part, from his 
deep religious convictions, yet led, in the 
course of time, to a degree of Phariseeism 
and hypocrisy which, for some years, greatly 
injured the reputation of his schools ; but 
important reforms and a more liberal course 
of education have, of late years, restored to 
them their ancient renown. In his seminary 
for teachers, in his strictly moral and religious 
instruction, in the general arrangements and 
classification of his schools, and in his school- 
houses — well located, well ventilated, spacious, 
and convenient — he certainly conferred as 
great services on the cause of education as 
any man of the seventeenth century. 

Among his collaborators, several attained a 
high reputation; especially Rambach, author 
of a treatise on pedagogy, entitled " The Well- 
instructed Teacher ;" Freyer, whose classical 
works are still in use in Germany ; Sarganeck, 



222 HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 

author of a work on school vices ; Hoffmann, 
author of treatises on natural history for 
schools ; Busching, equally celebrated as a 
teacher and pedagogical writer ; and Stein- 
metz, who attained renown both as a teacher 
and preacher. 



CHAPTEE XIX. 

Progress of education in the New England colonies, m the seventeenth 
century. — Legal provision for the establishment of schools and 
colleges in Massachusetts and Connecticut. — Legislation of New 
York for the same end. — Other colonies. — Scotland the first country 
in Europe to establish a system of common schools. — De la Salle 
and the Brothers of the Christian Schools. — Statistics of these 
schools in 1856. 

While the efforts of these and other emi- 
nent teachers in Europe, were directed to the 
improvement of education in their respective 
countries, the colonies which, in 1620 and the 
twenty-five years succeeding, had left Eng- 
land and planted themselves on the rugged 
shores of New England, had brought with 
them not only the manners, customs, and 
culture of their native land, but the deter- 
mination to rear here educational institutions 
which should prevent their descendants from 
subsiding into barbarism. 

Ere their own dwellings were so far com- 
pleted as to protect them from the inclemency 



224 HISTOEY AND 

of the climate, tliey reared the church edifice, 
and close by its side the school-house, where 
often, especially in the earlier days of the 
colonies, men taught the alphabet and the 
rudiments of learning, whose talents and 
attainments would have qualified them to fill 
the highest chair in any university in Europe. 
Legal provision was made, in Massachusetts 
and Connecticut, for the elementary instruction 
of all the children of each colony, many years 
before any such enactment had been thought 
of by any State in Europe. As early as 1635, 
the formation of free schools was recognized 
by law in Massachusetts ; in 1642, it was 
ordered, by the General Assembly, that every 
village, containing fifty families, should main- 
tain a school, in which reading and writing 
should be taught ; and that every township 
or district, containing one hundred families, 
should support a grammar-school — i. e., a 
school where Latin and Greek should be 
taught. Nor was Connecticut behind her sister 
colony in her zeal for public and universal 
education: in 1639, a school supported by tax 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 225 

existed in Hartford, and another in New 
Haven; and the code of 1650, the first com- 
pilation of the laws of the Connecticut com- 
monwealth, required parents and guardians to 
cause their children to be taught to read, and 
to learn the catechism, "under a penalty of 
twenty shillings for each neglect therein ;" and 
authorized the selectmen, after admonition, to 
take children who were uninstructed, from 
their parents and guardians, and place them 
in school. 

The same code provided, as in Massachu- 
setts, for the establishment of a school for 
every fifty householders, and a grammar-school 
for every hundred householders. In the col- 
ony of New Haven, which, until 1665, main- 
tained a separate existence, similar enactments 
were made, about the same period. Nor were 
these colonies unmindful of a higher intellect- 
ual culture. In 1636, the colony of Massachu- 
setts appropriated i6400 for the founding of a 
college, to which John Harvard, who died in 
1638, added about £800 more, and thus 
secured the establishment, within eighteen 



226 HISTORY AND 

years after the first settlers landed upon Plym- 
outh Rock, of a college whose reputation has 
constantly increased from that day to this. In 
the support of this seat of learning, the Plym- 
outh, Connecticut, and New Haven colonies all 
contributed according to their ability. 

In 1700, though impoverished by repeated 
Indian wars, the colonies of Connecticut and 
New Haven, at this time united under a single 
government, considering the interests of edu- 
cation and religion as requiring the founding 
of another college, determined upon establish- 
ing one at Saybrook (subsequently removed 
to New Haven), and granted it, from the 
colonial treasury, an annuity of £60 sterling. 

In the other English colonies, the progress 
of education was less rapid. Schools were 
established, for those who had the means to 
pay for tuition, in New Amsterdam (New 
York), under the Dutch administration, in 
1633, and at Beaverwyck (Albany), in 1642; 
and the Dutch West India Company subse- 
quently sent out, from Holland, teachers for 
all the settlements. 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 227 

In 1687, a Latin school was opened, in the 
city of New York, under the sanction of the 
English government ; but the colonial govern- 
ment did not provide for education till 1702, 
when a grammar-school was established, by 
the legislature, and £50 per annum appropri- 
ated, for seven years, for the support of a 
teacher. In Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the 
Carolinas, but little was done, during the sev- 
enteenth century, for education. A few 
schools were established for the children of 
the wealthier planters, but no general system 
of instruction prevailed. 

The first country in Europe to establish a 
complete system of parish-schools, for the 
instruction of all the children of the country, 
was Scotland. By an enactment, in 1696, it 
was provided that every parish should main- 
tain a school, with, a male teacher, for whom 
the landholders should erect a school-house 
and a dwelling. It has resulted from this 
enactment that, at this day, the people of 
Scotland, of all classes, are more intelligent 
and better educated than those of any other 



228 HISTORY AND 

country of Europe, with the possible exception 
of Prussia. 

Before closing our account of education in 
the seventeenth century, we must say a few 
words of the order of Brothers of the Christian 
Schools^ founded by Jean Baptist de la Salle, 
at Rheims in 1679, and at Paris in 1688, 
though not attaining to any considerable dis- 
tinction until the earlier years of the eigh- 
teenth century. De la Salle was a philanthro- 
pist, in the best sense of that term. Deeply 
impressed with the necessity of bestowing a 
better education on the children of the poorer 
classes, he devoted his patrimony and his 
entire life and labors to the work, and organ- 
ized this order, as the best method, in his 
judgment, of promoting an object he had so 
much at heart. 

Before intrusting the Brothers with the 
charge of schools, they were required to pass 
through a novitiate, somewhat like the normal 
schools of more modern times. At first, he 
required that their instruction should be gratu- 
itous ; but subsequently, the members of the 



PROGKESS OF EDUCATION. 229 

order were so much in demand, as teachers, 
that they were allowed to receive salaries, 
accounting for all their receipts, except their 
frugal fare, to their superiors in the order. 
The members of this order form the largest 
proportion of the professional teachers of the 
Roman Catholic Church. In 1856, they re- 
ported eight hundred and seventy-one schools, 
attended by about three hundred thousand 
children. 



CHAPTER XX. 

The Humanists, and their system of instruction. — Eminent Humanist 
teachers. — J. J. Eousseau. — Influence of his " Emile'''' upon edu- 
cation.— John Locke. — John B. Basedo-w. — His early career. — The 
'■^ Mem^ntar-Wer'k.'''' — The Philanthropinum.—^maW success of his 
personal teachings. — The impulse given to education by his efforts. 
— Wblke and the other successors of Basedow. — Count Zinzendorf. 
— Humanitarian institutions devoted to the education of the deaf 
and dumb, the blind, juvenile ofi'enders, &c. — Special schools of 
commerce, &c. — Eminent German writers on education. 

Somewhat later in date, though in joart 
cotemporaneous with the pietistic school of 
teachers, were the Humanists^ so named be- 
cause they, in opposition to the Pietists, in- 
sisted upon a more thorough classical culture, 
the study of the humanities^ as the instruction 
in the classics was termed. Cellarius, one of 
the most eminent of these teachers, whose 
contributions to school literature, in the way 
of Latin and Greek text-books, are w^orthy of 
record, was the cotemporary of Spener and 
Francke; J. M. Gesner (1691-1761), professor 
successively at Weimar, Jena, Leipsic, and 



232 HISTORY AND 

Gottingen, founder of the pedagogical semi- 
nary at Gottingen, and author of more than 
thirty educational works, was not only a man 
of almost universal scholarship, but also a wise 
and judicious teacher; Ernesti (1733-1801), 
nearly as profound in attainments, lived almost 
wholly in antiquity, and, by his zeal in anti- 
quarian investigation, exerted a powerful in- 
fluence on his pupils. 

Heyne (1729-1812), perhaps the finest 
classical scholar of modern times, by his excel- 
lent editions of the classics, by his direction of 
the School of Ilefeld, and finally by his labors 
in the University of Gottingen, where some of 
the most profound linguists of the age were 
educated, exerted a beneficial influence upon 
thousands of the youth of Germany. Jacobs 
and Creuzer, although following in the same 
course, belong rather to the present than the 
eighteenth century, and will be noticed further 
on. Meantime, Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712 
-1778), a man who, if his own confessions may 
be believed, was any thing but exemplary in 
his character, had, by his pedagogical works. 



PEOGEESS OF EDUCATION. 233 

opened the way for the establishment of a new 
system of teaching, which, for many years, 
exerted a powerful influence in Germany. 

The Emile of Rousseau, the work of a man 
who had never taught, and of a father who 
had sent his own children, at birth, to the 
Foundling Hospital, contained some pedagogi- 
cal truth, mixed with much of sophistry, false- 
hood, and immorality. Its pretence of follow- 
ing nature awakened the minds of some better 
men to a consideration of the natural methods 
of instruction. 

The educational works of John Locke, to 
whom we have already referred, also exerted 
some influence in turning the attention of 
teachers to nature, as a safe guide in the 
matter of education. Locke, like Rousseau, 
was a theorist; but, unlike him, his instincts 
and sympathies were on the side of morality 
and virtue. 

John Bernhard Basedow (1723-1790), a 
man of but limited education and little refine- 
ment, yet energetic, bold, self-reliant, and of 
great firmness and perseverance, after a some- 



234 HISTORY AND 

what singular career, in which he had been 
almost constantly engaged in theological con- 
troversies, published in 1768, in his forty-fifth 
year, a prospectus of an " Elementary Book of 
Human Knowledge." Assisted by an allow- 
ance from the Danish minister, Bernstorff, he 
devoted the next six years to its preparation. 
It was published in 1774, in four volumes, 
with one hundred plates. Its plan contem- 
plated, — 1. Elementary instruction in the 
knowledge of words and things ; 2. A method 
of teaching children to read, without weariness 
or loss of time ; 3. Natural knowledge ; 4. 
Knowledge of morals, the mind, and reason- 
ing ; 5. Natural religion ; 6. A knowledge of 
social duties, commerce, &c. Covering nearly 
the same ground with the celebrated work of 
Comenius, this Elementar -Werk might well be 
called the OrMs Pictus of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. His system of instruction thus published, 
he was soon summoned to put it in practice ; 
which he did, at Dessau, by the aid of Prince 
Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau, by the foundation 
of his Philanthropiimm, an institution in which 



PEOGKESS OF EDUCATION. 235 

nature was to be followed in the " plan of 
education. All nations were to participate in 
its advantages, on equal terms; and a creed, 
so general that even deists could subscribe to 
it, was to take the place of religious instruction. 

The number of pupils, at first, was small, 
only thirteen being in attendance at the end 
of two years. In 1776, Basedow issued a 
boastful and pompous circular, promising the 
most extraordinary results from his new 
method, and inviting princes, nobles, and 
others to attend his examinations, some three 
months later ; the reports of this examination 
led to some increase of pupils, though the 
number was never very great. In 1778, 
Basedow left the Philanthropinum, and Wolke, 
previously his assistant, and a man of much 
greater ability than Basedow, became the 
principal. Basedow, whose latter years were 
clouded by intemperance and a morose tem- 
per, taught privately at Dessau, and published 
some of his later pedagogical works there. 

The Philanthropinum flourished for a while, 
under the care of Wolke and his able assist- 



236 HISTORY AND 

ants, Salzmann, Campe, and others; but was 
finally closed, in 1793, having, however, led 
to the institution of other schools on the same 
system, in Marschlius, Switzerland, and in 
Hamburg, St. Petersburg, Durkheim, and 
Schnepfenthal. The last, founded by Salz- 
mann, in 1784, still exists. 

Philanthropism, as the theory of Basedow 
was called, though an imperfect system of 
education, yet accomplished something for its 
improvement. It led to a better appreciation 
of the necessity of physical training, to greater 
activity of the reflective faculties, liberated the 
reasoning faculties from the thraldom of the 
scholastic philosophy, and abolished the terri- 
ble cruelties of the old school discipline. It 
prepared the Avay, also, for other and better 
systems of instruction, which were soon to 
follow. Many of its teachers distinguished 
themselves, also, by their writings on the 
subject of education. Wolke, 'Gutsmuth, Salz- 
mann, Campe, Rochow, Becker, Schweighau- 
ser, and Trapp made valuable contributions to 
the school literature of the age. 



PEOGRESS OF EDUCATION. 237 

Another zealous and efficient patron of 
education, though belonging wholly to the 
eighteenth century, is rather to be ranked 
among the Pietists than the Philanthropists in 
his principles — Count Zinzendorf (1700-1760), 
the restorer of the sect of 3Io7xivians^ a pupil 
of Francke, established, in Europe and Amer- 
ica, numerous schools, modeled after those at 
Halle ; and, through the impulse which he 
gave to education among his followers, led 
indirectly to the founding of many others, 
most of which still exist. 

The strife which raged between the Pietists, 
the Humanists, and the Philanthropists, led 
many eminent friends of education to stand 
aloof from each of these schools, and to labor 
for the promotion of learning on wider and 
less exclusive principles. Some of these, 
impelled by a truly philanthropic spirit, sought 
out classes hitherto neglected, and endeavored 
to instruct them : such was the origin of the 
efforts for the instruction of deaf mutes, by 
Heinicke, Braidwood, the Abbe De I'Epee, and 
Sicard ; the instruction of the blind, by Valen- 



238 HISTORY AND 

tin Haiiy, Klein, and Zeune ; the establishment 
of Sunday-schools by Vincent de Paul, Robert 
Raikes, Fox, and Oberlin ; the organization of 
Reformatories by Odescalchi and Tata Gio- 
vanni at Rome, and the Philanthropic Society 
at London. 

Such, too, was the origin of many of those 
special schools of commerce, agriculture, 
mines, the arts of design, &c. 

Many of these eclectic teachers, as Fritz and 
others have named them, have also contributed 
materially to the advancement of education by 
their works. In Germany particularly, which, 
during the latter part of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, was the theater of the most active dis- 
cussion of the principles of education, Sulzer^ 
author of a work " On the Education of Chil- 
dren^'''' and a ^'•Resume of the Sciences ^'''' Miller^ 
whose '"'' Princiijles of a Wise and Christian 
Instruction^'' and '■'•Moral Pictures'''' are still 
popular ; Boch^ and Kant, the celebrated phi- 
losopher, both of whom wrote manuals of ped- 
agogics ; Weisse^ whose '"'■Friend of Ghildren^^ 
is still a favorite with both children and 



PEOGRESS OF EDUCATION. 239 

parents; Elilers^ whose ^'- Directions for Princes 
and the Governors of Princes''' show a profound 
knowledge of the principles of education ; 
Biisch^ the founder of the first school of com- 
merce, at Hamburg, in 1775, and a thoroughly- 
practical writer ; Feeler^ the able antagonist of 
Rousseau, and author of the New Emile ; Rese- 
witz^ the accomplished director of the Klos- 
terbergen Gymnasium, whose '''' Educational 
ThougJits^ Projects^ and Directions^'''' and '■'■Edu- 
cation of the Citizen^'''' contain more valuable 
thoughts and suggestions for the teacher than 
any other work of the last century; Gurlitt, 
the distinguished director of the gymnasium at 
Hamburg, author of numerous small works on 
education, and Roetger^ Heusinger^ A. H. Nie- 
meyer^ Schivartz, and Beneke — all able writers, 
but belonging rather to the present century 
than the last — have furnished, by their works, 
valuable additions both to the theoretical and 
practical knowledge of the art of instruction. 



CHAPTEE XXI. 

Pkstalozzi. — Abstract of his views on education, as developed in his 
works. — Objections to some of his positions. — His own imperfect 
success as a teacher. — Prevalence of the Pestalozzian system at the 
present day. — Other educational reformers cotemporary with Pesta- 
lozzi. — Fellenberg, Jacotot, Felbiger, Father Girard, and Lancaster. 
— Eeview of their several methods. — Adoption of the method of 
Sagan, introduced by Felbiger, in Austria. — The Lancasterian sys- 
tem. — At one time prevalent in England and America. — Its defects. 
— The labors of Oberlin, the brothers Zeller, Vehrli, and Wichcrn, 
in promoting education. — Cheering prospects of the future. 

The man who has exerted the most influence 
over the education of the race, in the last hun- 
dred years, is J. H. Pestalozzi (1746-1827). 
Like Basedow, his own education was imper- 
fect and one-sided ; like him, he had read, and 
was greatly impressed by Rousseau's Emile ; 
like him, too, he was visionary and extravagant 
in his hopes and expectations, and even to a 
much greater degree than Basedow himself; 
but, unlike him, he was a man of warm and 
loving heart, of high and pure aspirations, and 

of a deeply religious spirit. 

11 



242 HISTORY AND 

His life, judged as men ordinarily judge, 
was a series of failures; he lacked practical 
talent and tact : nothing to which he put his 
hand prospered, or, if it seemed to do so for 
a time, the seeds of decay and destruction 
were early sown in it, and it soon went to ruin. 
None felt this more, or were more deeply hum- 
bled by it, than himself; yet, with all this 
want of direct success, he initiated a great and 
successful educational movement, which is, this 
day, bearing fruit in the intellectual culture 
and advancement of millions. 

An influence so extensive, demands from us 
a brief examination of the principles on which 
his system was founded, its excellencies, and 
defects. His fundamental principle, as devel- 
oped in his ^'■Leonard and Gertrude^^'' his 
'■'' Hoio Gertrude teaches her Children^^ and his 
'"' Book for Mothers^'''' was that education should 
proceed according to the laws of nature ; that 
it was the duty of the teacher to assist this, by 
exciting the child to self-activity, and render- 
ing him only a limited degree of assistance ; 
that progress should be slow and gradual, but 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 243 

uninterrupted, never passing to a second topic 
till the first is fully understood ; that the memo- 
ry and the understanding should not be unduly 
cultivated, but all the faculties developed in 
harmony ; that the peculiarities of every child 
and of each sex should be carefully studied, in 
order to adapt instruction to them ; that the 
elements of all knowledge were Form, Number, 
and Language, and that these elements should 
be taught with simplicity and thoroughness; 
that the art of observing should be acquired, 
and the perceptive faculties well developed; 
that every topic of instruction should become 
an exercise for the reflective powers ; that 
mental arithmetic, geometry, and the arts of 
drawing and modeling objects of beauty, were 
all important exercises for training, strength- 
ening, and disciplining the mind ; that the 
laws of language should be developed from 
within, and the exercises in it made not only 
to cultivate the intellect, but to improve the 
affections ; that vocal music should be tau2:ht 
in schools, not by rote, but by a careful study 
of the elementary principles of music ; that the 



244 HISTORY AND 

Socratic method, as used by Basedow and 
others, was objectionable, and that, in the 
early stages of instruction, dictation by the 
teacher and repetition by the scholar is prefer- 
able, and, at a more advanced stage, the giving 
out problems by the teacher, to be solved by 
the pupil, without assistance ; that religious 
instruction should begin with the mother, that 
the filial feelings of the child should be first 
cultivated, and directed toward God, and that 
formal religious instruction should be reserved 
to a later period, when the child can under- 
stand it ; that despotic and cruel government 
in schools was improper, but that mutual affec- 
tion between teacher and pupil was a better 
incitement to intellectual activity than prizes, 
or other stimulants to emulation ; and, finally, 
that the exercise of the senses and the thor- 
ough cultivation of the physical powers, were 
of very great importance to the complete 
development of the child. 

Most of these principles were excellent, and 
many of them greatly in advance of any previ- 
ous system ; but the practical defects were, 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 245 

that though the intellect was quickened, there 
was too little positive knowledge communi- 
cated; that excessive attention was given to 
mathematical and intuitive studies, to the 
neglect of other branches of knowledge ; that 
simplification was carried too far, and con- 
tinued too long ; that too little attention was 
given to historical truth, and to testimony as a 
source of knowledge, especially in matters of 
religion ; and that he fell too much into Base- 
dow's error, of regarding religious knowledge 
as innate. 

Pestalozzi's principles were, however, better 
than his practice, and in other hands accom- 
plished more than in his own. The system of 
instruction which, in the Prussian schools, has 
been so successful in the intellectual develop- 
ment of the nation, is based on that of Pesta- 
lozzi, with but few and slight modifications; 
and in England and our own country, as well 
as in the North of Europe, his method has 
exerted a more powerful influence on teachers 
than any other. 

Several cotemporaries of Pestalozzi have 



246 HISTORY AND 

also distinguished themselves by systems or 
methods of instruction, which have exerted a 
.wide, and, in some countries, a controlling in- 
fluence. Prominent among these, are Fellen- 
berg, Jacotot, Felbiger, Father Girard, and 
Lancaster. 

Fellenherg (1771-1844) was, like Pestalozzi, 
a Swiss, but, unlike him, a man of rank and 
fortune. He devoted himself and his fortune 
to the establishment of an institution at Hof- 
wyl, a few miles from Berne, which comprised 
an agricultural institute, theoretical and practi- 
cal ; a manufactory of agricultural implements 
and machines ; a rural school for the poor, in 
which they were taught the principles of 
agriculture, in connection with other studies ; 
a superior school, for the education of the 
young nobility of Germany ; an intermediate 
school, for the training of the middle classes ; 
and a normal school, for the instruction of the 
teachers of the canton. His system was in 
many respects analogous to that of Pestalozzi, 
but was preferable to it, in that it communi- 
cated more positive knowledge, was more 



PROGKESS OF EDUCATION. 24:7 

practical in character, maintained a more just 
equipoise of the faculties, and gave more 
weight to historic truth, and to the revelation 
of the Holy Scriptures. His schools were dis- 
continued in 1848, except the Poor-school, the 
pupils of which are employed in practical 
agriculture on his large estate. 

Jacotot (1770-1840) was a native of France, 
educated at Dijon, and subsequently a professor 
in the ■ University of Louvain. His method, 
which has been very generally adopted in 
Belgium, and to some extent in other coun- 
tries, was intended to give more exercise to 
the memorizing faculty than the Pestalozzian 
school had done. He required his pupils to 
commit all the lessons to memory, whether in 
the languages or sciences, and the teacher 
explained briefly any difficulty ; the next day 
they were to repeat the same lesson, and give 
an explanation of it themselves ; — this, he 
contended, gave them more command of lan- 
guage, more positive knowledge, and greater 
power of using it, than the method of Pesta- 
lozzi. 



248 HISTORY AND 

FelMger, an Austrian bishop of Sagan, in 
Silesia, and subsequently (not far from 1770) 
appointed director-general of the Austrian 
schools, was the author of the Method of Sagaii, 
named in honor of his former see. Felbiger 
had, previous to assuming the office of director- 
general, traveled extensively over Europe, 
investigating the different systems of educa- 
tion, and ascertaining their practical value. 
On his return, he organized, at first in Silesia, 
and afterward in other parts of Austria, normal 
schools, and primary and secondary schools, 
and procured the passage of a law requiring 
parents to send their children to school, under 
the penalty of fines and corporal punishment. 

The teachers were all examined, and the 
schools required to be taught, according to 
the Method of Sagan — a combination of the 
methods of Basedow and Pestalozzi. Every 
thing taught was regarded in a merely practi- 
cal and utilitarian view ; the teacher proceeded 
from the known to the unknown with great 
rapidity, and it was to be his aim to develop 
the intelligence rather than the memory. In- 



PROGKESS OF EDUCATION. 249 

struction was given on the simultaneous sys- 
tem ; the classes were carefully formed with 
reference to the progress and talents of the 
pupils who composed them, and frequent 
examinations tested their improvement. 

The system, though faulty, was very well 
adapted for schools where the teachers and 
scholars were regarded as mere machines ; and 
it is not surprising that it was universally 
adopted in Austria. In Bohemia, the Method 
of Sagan was also propagated, by command of 
Maria Theresa, by the zealous labors of Kin- 
dermann (de Schulstein), a friend and co- 
worker with Felbiger. This system was in 
vogue throughout the Empire of Austria until 
the last fifteen years. 

Father Girard (1765-1850) was a monk of 
the order of Cordeliers, a native of Fribourg, 
Switzerland, a man of a catholic and liberal 
spirit, and earnestly devoted to the cause of 
education. He established a school at Fri- 
bourg, in which he adopted, with some modi- 
fications, the system of Pestalozzi, upon whose 
labors he had been called by the government 



250 HISTOEY AND 

to make an examination and report. He re- 
garded the practice of questioning the pupils, 
after the manner of Basedow, with more favor 
than Pestalozzi. His school, while enjoying a 
high reputation, was broken up by the in- 
trigues of the Jesuits. In 1835, he published 
a valuable work, entitled ^''Educational Course 
in the Maternal Laiiguage^ for the Use of 
Schools and Families.'''' 

Joseph La7icaster (1771-1839) was a native 
of England, a member of the Society of 
Friends. He will be remembered by posterity 
as the founder of the monitorial, or Lancaste- 
rian system^ as it was usually called, in which 
the most intelligent pupils in a class were 
required to teach their fellows that which they 
had acquired. 

This plan, it was argued, developed the 
intellect of the young monitor, and at the 
same time his intellectual attainments were so 
nearly on a level with those of his companions, 
that he would be better able to explain the 
lesson to their understandings, than a teacher 
who was very considerably beyond them in 



PKOGRESS OF EDUCATION. 251 

knowledge. This system was, theoretically, 
very plausible, and at one period great num- 
bers of schools, particularly in cities and large 
towns, both in England and this country, 
adopted it. It was found, however, that the 
knowledge of the monitors was, for the most 
part, crude and confused, and that they oftener 
taught error than truth ; and the system is 
now generally abandoned. The method was 
not the invention of Mr. Lancaster, for Pesta- 
lozzi had practiced it to some extent, and 
Trotzendorf, two centuries earlier, also ; but it 
was more fully developed and systematized by 
him than it had previously been. The latter 
years of his life, from 1818 to his death, were 
spent in this country. 

Among those who have, by their humble 
but assiduous labors in the cause of the educa- 
tion of the poor, exerted a powerful influence 
in the promotion of universal education, we 
should mention, also, the pastor Oberlm, of the 
Ban de la Roche (1740-1826), by whose zeal 
and patience the half-savage population of that 
sterile mountain district were changed into an 



252 HISTORY AND 

intelligent, hospitable, refined, and happy peo- 
ple ; the brothers Zeller^ who, in their several 
capacities — the elder as high-school councilor 
of Prussia, and the younger as superintendent 
of the seminary for orphan and destitute chil- 
dren, and teachers of the poor, at Beuggen — • 
have accomplished much for the education of 
the lower classes; and Jacob Vehrli^ for fifty 
years at the head of the normal school for 
country teachers at Kruitzlingen, from whence 
he has sent forth an influence for good over 
Switzerland, Germany, France, and England. 

Humanitarian education has made very 
great progress, during the last seventy years, 
in Europe as well as in the United States. 
There are now nearly or quite two hundred 
institutions for deaf mutes, more than one 
hundred for the blind, about twenty for idiots, 
and more than five hundred for juvenile 
vagrants and offenders. 

In the reformatory schools, Dr. J. IT. 
WicJiern^ of Horn, near Hamburg ; MM. De 
Metz and Bretigneres de CourteiUes, at Met- 
tray ; MM. Bucpetiaux, at Brussels, and Fol, 



PEOGRESS OF EDUCATION. 253 

at Ruysselede ; and Messrs. Turner.^ Giles, 
Lloyd Baker, and others, in England, are 
deserving of special notice. 

In this country, the humanitarian institu- 
tions are numerous, and better conducted 
than in Europe, except those for reformatory 
education, where the evils of the congregated 
system have prevented, to some extent, that 
progress which is desirable. 

The present condition of education through- 
out the civilized world is hopeful : intelligence 
is more generally diffused than at any previous 
period of the world's history ; every branch of 
science has received new impulses within the 
past sixty years ; the subjects of knowledge 
are constantly extending, the discoveries in 
physical science have opened a new world to 
the dominion of man ; philology and its cog- 
nate sciences have been greatly extended, the 
topics and methods of study have been in- 
■creased and enlarged ; the press has become, 
not the third or fourth, but the first power in 
the State ; newspapers, which, prior to the 
present century, had but few readers, and 



254 HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 

exerted comparatively little influence, now 
visit almost every household, and influence 
the views and opinions of men, to a greater 
extent than any other agency. The progress 
of moral education has, on the whole, fully 
kept pace with intellectual culture. Physical 
training is not yet sufficiently practiced, but 
material progress is making in this particular. 



CHAPTEE XXII. 

Review of the present condition of education in the principal countries 
of the world. — England. — Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain, and 
Portugal. — The States of the Church, Sardinia, Tuscany, Naples, 
Turkey, Greece, Russia, Lapland, and Finmark. — Norway, Sweden, 
and Denmark. 

A BRIEF review of the present condition of 
education in the more prominent countries of 
the world, and statistics concerning the num- 
ber under instruction, may fitly close our brief 
history. In England, the facilities for acquir- 
ing a thorough university education are excel- 
lent, for those who have sufficient means at 
command; the course of study at Cambridge 
and Oxford, though perhaps giving excessive 
prominence to classical and mathematical 
studies, is still well calculated to develop the 
intellectual powers. The London University, 
and some of the colleges of the dissenters, 
give more attention to physical science. The 
great endowed schools of Eton, Rugby, Har- 
row, Westminster, Winchester, Christ's Hos- 



256 HISTORY AND 

pital, &c., &c., are, for the most part, devoted 
to classical and matliematical training. 

In provision for the education of the masses, 
England is yet far behind many of the coun- 
tries of Europe. The great difficulty has been 
a religious one, — the so-called national schools, 
as well as most others which received assist- 
ance from the government, being under the 
control of the Established Church, and the 
children of dissenters being educated in pri- 
vate schools. Still, under the persevering 
efforts of Lord Brougham, Sir J. Kay Shuttle- 
worth, the Earl of Shaftesbury, Lord Stanley, 
and other distinguished friends of education, 
there has been decisive progress within a few 
years past : the factory children are not now 
brought up in utter ignorance; a cheap yet 
instructive literature pervades every hamlet, 
and has developed, even in the lowest classes, 
a love of reading ; evening schools for adults, 
and Sunday-schools, which there, as well as on 
the continent, are very often occupied with 
instruction in reading and other elementary 
branches, are very largely attended. 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 257 

The education of deaf mutes and the blind, 
is more limited than in France or this coun- 
try, being generally confined to reading, writ- 
ing, and the acquisition of some mechanical 
art, on the part of the deaf and dumb ; and 
reading by touch, singing, playing on musical 
instruments, and knitting, mat-braiding, weav- 
ing, or basket-making, for the blind. 

The Reformatories of England are deserving 
of high praise, both for their number and 
success. Hundreds are every year rescued by 
them from a life of crime, and rendered good 
and intelligent citizens. 

Scotland is inferior to England in its facili- 
ties for higher education ; and the low salaries 
afforded to the professors in its universities, 
prevent, in many cases, highly qualified scholars 
from accepting the 2^osts; but in secondary 
and primary education, it is far in advance of 
England. Its system of parish-schools is not, 
indeed, perfect, but it is constantly improving. 
Its humanitarian institutions have a higher 
reputation than those south of the Tweed. 

Ireland, so long the victim of ignorance 



258 iiisTor.y and 

and misrule, is improving in education and 
general intelligence, as much, or more than 
any country of Europe. Within a few years, 
good schools have been greatly multiplied; 
and, ere long, her peasantry will be beyond 
those of England in intelligence. This is the 
result of the system of national education, 
established there about thirty years since, 
which, from small beginnings, and the con- 
stant and violent opposition of ultraists among 
both Protestants and Catholics, has at last 
drawn into its schools the great bulk of the 
children of the country. It provides for com- 
bined secular, and sepai'cde religious instruc- 
tion, and thus obviates the great difficulties 
under which the English schools have labored. 
In France, superior education^ as it is called, 
especially in mathematical and physical sci- 
ence, is not inferior to that of any country in 
the world; and the colleges and lyceums 
which are found in every considerable town in 
the empire, are generally well conducted. In 
thorough classical knowledge, we doubt if the 
French scholars are equal to the Germans, and 



PROGEESS OF EDUCATION. 259 

in helles-lettres they are certainly not superior 
to the English. In philosophy they have 
many illustrious names. 

Primary education was very much neglected 
from the time of the Revolution of 1793 to 
the accession of Louis Philippe ; but the efforts 
of that monarch, seconded, most zealously, by 
Guizot, effected, in the course of the next 
eighteen years, a wonderful change ; and, in 
1850, only two thousand five hundred com- 
munes, out of more than thirty-eight thousand, 
were without one or more primary schools, 
and one-ninth of the whole population were 
attending school. The instruction in these 
primary schools might be improved ; in too 
many of them the method of Jacotot, or that 
of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, in 
which too much reliance is placed on the 
memory, and the understanding is not suffi- 
ciently cultivated, are practiced. The chari- 
table, reformatory, and special schools of 
France are generally well conducted, and the 
success of some of them — that of the institutes 
for the deaf and dumb, and for the blind, and 



260 HISTORY AND 

the reformatory colony at Mettray — has been 
been such as to attract the attention of all the 
nations of Europe. 

Of the educational condition of Spain and 
Portugal, we cannot speak so favorably. 
Harassed, for years, by internal discords and 
civil wars, the glory which once belonged to 
their universities has long since departed; 
even the children of the wealthy and noble 
are but indifferently taught, and the offspring 
of the poor seldom find any other school than 
that at their own fireside. The rigid adher- 
ence of the people to the Catholic faith, has 
prevented the introduction (once attempted) 
of more modern systems of instruction, like 
that of Pestalozzi ; and the methods of the 
Jesuits and the Esculapians (an order similar 
to the Brothers of the Christian Schools), and 
even the still older systems of the middle 
ages, characterize the teachings of the sec- 
ondary and primary schools, while the scholas- 
tic philosophy still finds a home within the 
walls of her universities. 

In Italy, the States of the Church do not 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 261 

lack for schools or colleges. Education is 
superintended by a company of cardinals, who, 
under the designation of the Congregation of 
Studies^ make the examinations, and, person- 
ally or by deputy, appoint the professors and 
teachers. The primary or communal schools 
are under the immediate supervision of the 
bishops, who are also generally chancellors of 
the universities. There are also regional 
schools, and schools for each sex, under the 
direction of several of the religious orders. 
Most of these schools are free, or nearly so, in 
many of them the teachers being supported by 
endowments. 

The instruction, in most of them, is not very 
thorough, except on religious topics ; and the 
old memorizing system is in vogue. The 
standard of education in the universities and 
colleges is not high ; and these States, which, 
at the revival of learning, produced some of 
the most eminent scholars of Europe, have 
now but little literary reputation. 

Sardinia, which, up to 1848, was behind 
most of the other countries of Europe in edu- 



262 HISTORY AND 

cation, has, since that time, almost taken its 
place among the foremost. This is due, in 
part, to the labors of Antonio Rosmini, an 
accomplished educator, and writer on peda- 
gogical science ; and in part to the impulse 
given to the nation by a constitutional gov- 
ernment and their emancipation from priestly 
influence. 

The system of education embraces superior 
and inferior primary schools, for all the chil- 
dren of the kingdom ; secondary schools, 
colleges, universities, and special schools; the 
Pestalozzian method is generally adopted, and 
normal schools, well conducted, are fast sup- 
plying competent teachers. With better text- 
books, and a few years' experience in her 
present system, the population of Sardinia will 
speedily become one of the most intelligent in 
Southern Europe. 

Tuscany, under Austrian influence, has 
adopted, to a considerable extent, the Austrian 
system of education; her schools are, for the 
most part, in good repute, and the Universities 
of Pisa and Sierra retain something of their 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 263 

ancient renown. Relatively, however, to the 
other countries of Europe, Tuscany has fallen 
much from its old position. The home of the 
Medicis, the birth-place of Dante, of Lionardo 
da Vinci, and of numerous others of the 
noblest names of Italy, it once stood in the 
front rank among the intelligent and educated 
nations of Christendom ; but now its presses 
are controlled by the censorship, and its uni- 
versities graduate few men of distinction. 

The Kingdom of Naples, or the Two Sici- 
lies, is in a very low educational condition. 
Sicily has more schools than the continental 
portion of the kingdom, but they are not well 
conducted, and beyond reading and writing, 
the children make very little progress. Its 
colleges and universities have some reputation, 
but the despotic character of the government 
is unfavorable to much intellectual freedom or 
activity. 

Turkey has schools for its Moslem popula- 
tion, and its laws make it obligatory on every 
parent to send his children to school. The 
teaching is in Turkish and Arabic, and is not 



264 HISTORY AND 

generally of the highest order ; there has been, 
however, material improvement since 1847, 
when a system of intermediate schools was 
established, which took the place of the sec- 
ondary schools of other countries. Previously 
there had only existed the mekteb, or elemen- 
tary schools, and the medressehs^ or gymnasia. 
There are some special schools, but education 
is at a low ebb. 

Greece has, since its independence, made 
zealous efforts for the improvement of public 
instruction. There is an efficient university 
at Athens, secondary schools in each consider- 
able town, and, in most cases, elementary 
schools in each commune. The Pestalozzian 
system is generally adopted. As yet, how- 
ever, not much more than one-fourth of the 
children are under instruction. 

Russia, though in many respects only a 
semi-civilized nation, has made very strenuous 
exertions, of late years, to improve the educa- 
tional condition of its people. Its universities 
and its special schools of military, mining, 
engineering, manufacturing, and agricultural 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 265 

science, are worthy of very high commenda- 
tion for the extent and thoroughness of their 
instruction. Provision is made for the elemen- 
tary instruction of the children of the soldiery, 
who are generally expected to follow their 
fathers' profession ; but, although ukases have 
been issued, ordering the establishment of 
schools in every commune, yet not one-seventh 
of the children of European Russia receive 
any instruction whatever. The present Czar 
is deeply interested in the improvement of 
the social and intellectual condition of his 
people, and his efforts will not be wanting to 
effect a favorable progress in this direction. 

Lapland and Finmark are almost destitute 
of schools, though many of the Lapps and Fins 
acquire a knowledge of reading, and some of 
them have become eminent as scholars. The 
people of Iceland are generally intelligent, but 
their education is, for the most part, domestic, 
or communicated by their pastors. 

^In Norway, though the sparseness of the 
population is a great drawback to the mainte- 
nance of good schools in the country, education 

12 



266 HISTORY AND 

is very general. Only about one-eighth of 
her population dwell in towns. For these, the 
advantages of education are hardly surpassed 
by any country in Europe : there are elemen- 
tary and upper district-schools, citizens' schools, 
answering very nearly to our academies ; Real 
schools, in which technical science is taught in 
connection with the knowledge of modern 
languages ; Latin or cathedral schools, furnish- 
ing a classical education ; military, agricultur- 
al, drawing, and polytechnic schools; normal 
schools, and a university. In the country, 
there are what are called ambulatory schools, 
kept by teachers who go from hamlet to ham- 
let, and teach for about eight weeks in each. 

In Sweden, education is very general. 
Through the efforts of Mr. Siljestrom, a law 
has been passed, requiring at least one station- 
ary school in each parish, and normal schools 
for teachers, in addition to the ambulatory 
schools, which are still necessary in the dis- 
tricts of scattered and sparse population. The 
system of schools is quite complete, but the 
quality of the teaching is susceptible of im- 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 267 

provement. In physical education the Swedes 
are not equaled by any country in Europe. 
Their universities at Upsala and Lund have a 
high reputation. 

Denmark has for many years maintained a 
high standard of education ; the proportion of 
pupils in school to the whole population, is 
said to be greater than that of any other 
country in Europe. The Pestalozzian method 
is generally adopted ; and there is a complete 
system of graded schools, from the university 
to the primary school. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

The German States. — Prussia, Saxony, and Wurtemberg. — Austria, 
Bohemia, Croatia, and the Austrian Archduchies in Italy. — Bavaria, 
Mecklenburg, and the smaller States. — Eminent living and recent 
German writers on education. — Africa. — Egypt and the tributaries 
of the Porte. — Algiers, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cape Colony. — Other 
portions of the African continent. — Asia. — Persia, Independent and 
Chinese Tartary, Afghanistan and BeloochLstan, Siberia, China, and 
Japan. — Thibet, Siain, Tonquin, Burmah, Malacca, The Karens and 
Shyens, India, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific islands. 

The States of Germany, with hardly an 
exception, occupy a high educational position. 
There is, however, a difference in these States. 
Prussia, Saxony, and Wurtemberg are perhaps 
entitled to the first rank, Austria to the second, 
and Bavaria, Mecklenburg, and perhaps some 
other of the smaller States to the lowest. In 
Prussia, as well as in several of the other 
German States, a modification of the Pesta- 
lozzian method is adopted. The elementary 
text-book in the primary schools, is a Reader 
(a modern Orhis Pictus), in which the rudi- 
ments of geography (the geography of Ger- 



270 HISTORY AND 

many), natural history, arithmetic, language, 
&c., are arranged as reading lessons; and all 
instruction not found in the Reader, is commu- 
nicated orally by the teacher, assisted, how- 
ever, by maps, drawings, specimens of natural 
history, &c., which are found in every school- 
room. 

Eight years' attendance upon the schools is 
compulsory upon the children ; they pass from 
the primary to the burgher schools, the Real 
schools, the gymnasia, and the university, if 
they choose to obtain a thorough education. 
Prussia abounds in special schools. There 
are advantages of higher education open to 
females. Normal schools are established in all 
the principal towns of the kingdom ; but the 
demand for teachers is so much greater than 
the supply, that, in 1854, the period of train- 
ing was shortened, and the standard of attain- 
ments lowered, — a measure regarded by 
eminent educators as extremely injurious to 
the welfare of the schools. The plan of edu- 
cation adopted in Saxony and Wurtemberg, 
differs but little from that of Prussia. It is 



PKOGRESS OF EDUCATION. 271 

perhaps somewhat more thorough and liberal 
in Saxony, and its results are highly satis- 
factory. 

Austria, though far behind Prussia and 
several of the other States in intellectual 
progress, is improving. Austria proper has, 
within a few years, made great advance in her 
elementary schools, and has established many 
Real schools, which differ from those bearing 
the same name in North Germany, in being 
more technical in their character, and in pur- 
suing a more extended course. The Method 
of Sagan has given place to better systems of 
instruction ; and though there is still great 
room for improvement, yet Austria occupies 
a very fair position among the countries of 
Europe in the intelligence of its people. 

Since 1855, attendance upon the schools 
has been made compulsory ; and great efforts 
have been made to extend to Hungary, Bohe- 
mia, Croatia, and Austrian Italy similar regu- 
lations to those maintained in the Archduchy 
of Austria. 

In Bavaria, Mecklenburg, and some of the 



272 HISTOKY AND 

other small German States, the governments 
have taken less interest in the promotion of 
education than in the States already named, 
and the schools, consequently, have not 
attained a high position. Higher education 
is, however, well cared for in Bavaria, and the 
fine arts are cultivated, at Munich, with a zeal 
unsurpassed in Germany. 

The present generation has not been with- 
out able pedagogical writers in Germany. 
Yon Raumer, Diesterweg, Blochmann, Nie- 
meyer, and Schwarz have rendered good ser- 
vice to the work of instruction by their works 
on the history and science of pedagogy. 

In the variety and extent of their charitable 
educational institutions, the Germans have 
surpassed all the other nations of Europe. 
They have a great number of institutions for 
the deaf and dumb, ten or twelve for the 
blind, two for idiots, and four or five for 
cretins; creches and hinder- garten (children's 
gardens), for infants; some hundreds of re- 
formatories, for all classes of juvenile offenders 
and vagrants ; orphan schools, almost without 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 273 

number; industrial schools; "work schools," 
for pauper children, one of which, that of 
Gustavus Werner at Reutlingen, has in train- 
ing and supervision seven hundred pauper 
children ; schools for the education and train- 
ing of deaconesses, or Protestant sisters of 
charity, hospital nurses and superintendents, — 
like that of Pastor Fliedner, at Kaiserswerth, 
where Florence Nightingale received the in- 
struction which qualified her for her noble 
work; the schools of the Inner Mission, at 
Horn, near Hamburg, where young men are 
trained to take charge of reformatories, 
prisons, hospitals, &c. ;■ — in short, the compre- 
hensive German heart has, it would seem, 
provided institutions to meet all the ills, the 
wants, and deficiencies of suffering and sinful 
humanity. 

On the great African continent, we find but 
little attention paid to education. Egypt and 
the Tributaries of the Porte, in Northern 
Africa, have schools after the Moslem fashion, 
in which the children of the true believers are 
taught to read the Koran, and acquire a little 

12* 



274 > HISTORY AND 

rudimentary knowledge of arithmetic. Al- 
giers, as a French colony, is receiving the 
French system of communal and higher 
schools. The English and American settle- 
ments at Sierra Leone and Liberia have 
established schools in accordance with the 
plans of the mother countries, Liberia having 
organized also a college. The Cape Colony 
has free schools in every district, and two 
colleges; but the vast territories which com- 
prise the interior, and eastern coast of the 
continent, can hardly be said to have any 
system of education. 

Those tribes and countries into which the 
Arabs have penetrated, have usually a few 
persons who can read and write ; and in the 
Portuguese settlements, which occasionally dot 
the coasts, may be found some persons of 
Portuguese extraction, who possess a tolerable 
education ; — but aside from these, and the few 
schools which the missionaries have been able 
to establish at their various stations, there is 
nothing which can, in the ordinary sense of 
the term, be called education. 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 275 

Portions of Asia are less degraded. In 
Persia there still remains the tradition of the 
learning which once made Bagdad and Ispa- 
han the centers of intelligence for the worship- 
ers of Mohammed; and many of the Persian 
mullahs are, at the present day, accomplished 
in the Arabic lore, which was so highly prized 
in the days of the Abassides. 

Further east, the nomadic tribes which roam 
over the wide steppes of Independent and Chi- 
nese Tartary, and the thievish, freebooting 
Afghans and Beloochees, have little respect 
for books or learning. The principal towns 
of Siberia have schools and educated people ; 
but they are exiles from Russia, or officers and 
their families who are located there on duty. 

Of China and Japan we have already 
spoken ; their systems of education have 
changed but little, probably, for two thousand 
five hundred years. In Thibet, the condition 
of education does not vary, materially, from 
that of China. Siam, Tonquin, and Burmah, 
professing substantially the Biidhist faith, have 
also the Biidhist educational system ; while 



276 HISTORY AND 

the inhabitants of Malacca and the Malaysian 
Isles are hardly to be considered as possessing 
any education. 

A large population, extending over consid- 
erable portions of Farther India, and known 
under the names of Karens and Sliyens^ have 
not embraced the Blidhist doctrines, and 
possessed no written language until they were 
provided with one by the missionaries. 

In India, while the Brahminical system has 
made small advance from its methods of 
instruction two thousand years ago, the East 
India Company have made some efforts to 
establish colleges for the education of such of 
the Brahmins as might fill offices in the em- 
ploy of the Company ; and the missionaries of 
the different denominations have established 
schools, of different grades, in various parts of 
India. The mutiny and war have broken up 
many of these, but they will probably be re- 
opened. 

In Austkalia, schools have been established 
and liberally supported by the government ; 
and two colleges, one at Sydney and the other 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION, 277 

at Melbourne, have been founded. Tasmania, 
New Zealand, the Society and the Sandwich 
Islands, all have good schools; and, in the 
two latter groups, the natives are, many of 
them, acquiring considerable education. At 
Oahu, one of the Sandwich Islands group, a 
college has recently been established. 



CHAPTER XXIY. 

North and South America.— Canada East and West. — United States. 
— Northern and Southern States. — Hispano- American States: Mex- 
ico, Central America, &c. — West India Islands: Cuba, Porto Rico, 
Jamaica, Trinidad, Hayti, &c. — South America. — New Grenada, 
Venezuela, Ecuador. — French, Dutch, and British Guiana. — Brazil, 
the Argentine Confederation, Buenos Ayres, Uruguay, and Para- 
guay. — Chile, Bolivia, and Peru. 

Turning our attention to the American 
continent, we find in Newfoundland a low 
state of education ; in New Brunswick, a 
larger number of schools in proportion to the 
population, and a college, not very efficient; 
in Canada East, a good school system, em- 
bracing all grades from the university to the 
primary school, and an annually increasing 
attendance and efficiency; in Canada West, 
an organization unsurpassed in its results, for 
attendance and intellectual progress, by any in 
the world. 

In the United States there is a great variety 
in the educational condition of different sec- 



280 HISTORY AND 

tions of the country. The Northern States, 
owing in part to their more compact popu- 
lation, and in part also to the strong conviction 
of the necessity of popular education, received 
from the large infusion of settlers of New Eng- 
land birth, have generally efficient school- 
systems ; and though, in some of them, owing 
to the very recent period of their settlement, 
the details are not yet thoroughly wrought 
out, yet they can not fail, in a few years, to 
present a condition, in respect to education, 
unequaled by any nation on the globe. 

The Southern States, on the other hand, 
owing to the sparseness of their inhabitants, 
the existence of a large servile population, and 
the wealth of the principal property-holders, 
have not generally attained to so high an 
educational position. 

A few of these States have made praise- 
worthy efforts for a more effective school- 
system, and, considering the difficulties with 
which they have had to contend, have 
made good progress ; among these. North 
Carolina, Alabama, Missouri, Kentucky, Ten- 



PEOGEESS OF EDUCATION. 281 

nessee, and Louisiana are deserving of special 
mention. 

The higher education is not equal to that of 
England, France, or Germany. Our colleges, 
numbering more than one hundred and 
twenty, though possessing more extensive 
grounds, and often much larger endowments, 
are not, with a few exceptions, superior, in the 
extent or thoroughness of their course of in- 
struction, to the collegiate schools of England, 
the lyceums and colleges of France, or the 
gymnasia, Real schools, and Latin schools of 
Germany. Of true university instruction, with 
the exception of Harvard University, Yale 
College, and Columbia College, we have 
nothing deserving the name ; and even these 
are far below the European universities. 

But, in the wide diffusion of elementary 
education, and in the development of a high 
intellectual activity, no country of Europe can 
compare favorably with the New England 
States and New York. A comparison of the 
percentage of children in attendance upon the 
schools in these States, to the whole popula- 



282 HISTOKY AND 

tion, with Prussia, Austria, Saxony, and Den- 
mark, where attendance is compulsory, will 
show conclusively the eJ05ciency of their school 
organization. Education in the United States, 
though materially influenced by the writings 
of Pestalozzi, Fellenberg, and their associates 
and followers, can hardly be said to be con- 
ducted on the Pestalozzian method. The 
mutual or monitorial system of Lancaster, once 
very popular here, is now entirely discarded. 

The efforts of Woodbridge, Carter, Gallau- 
det, and others ; and, more recently, of Horace 
Mann, Henry Barnard, David P. Page, Bishop 
Alonzo Potter, and other eminent friends of 
education, have accomplished much for the 
diffusion of right views on the subject of 
teaching, and have led to the adoption of 
measures which render our common-school 
system the glory of our country. In this 
country, the Sunday-school is not, as in most 
of the European States, used to impart secular 
instruction. 

Humane and reformatory institutions are 
quite numerous in the United States: there 



PEOGRESS OF EDUCATION. 283 

are more than twenty deaf and dumb institu- 
tions, nearly the same number for the blind ; 
seven schools for idiots, and nearly or quite 
fifty reform schools. Besides the professional 
seminaries, special schools of military, naval, 
engineering, chemical, and agricultural science, 
also exist, — and the last are becoming quite 
numerous. 

The HisPANO- American States — Mexico 
and Central America — owing in part to their 
frequent revolutions, and in part to the large 
admixture of races, are in a very low educa- 
tional condition, much lower, even, than when 
provinces of Spain. No public-school system 
exists ; and, though there are a few good 
private schools, and some conventual schools, 
and a university at the city of Mexico, the 
great mass of the people are most deplorably 
illiterate. 

In the West India Islands, Cuba has made 
some efforts for the improvement of education 
since 1842, and has now two very good 
universities and several colleges. The number 
of elementary schools is estimated at about six 



284 HISTOEY AND 

hundred, and of pupils not over ten thousand, 
about one in one hundred of the population. 
In the rural districts profound ignorance pre- 
vails, while in the cities there are a considera- 
ble number of good schools. The wealthier 
classes, very generally, send their children 
abroad for an education. 

In Jamaica, popular education is more ad- 
vanced, and a very considerable proportion of 
the people of color are beginning to under- 
stand its advantages. The children in school 
constitute about one-thirtieth of the whole 
population. Hayti has few schools, and no 
public provision is made for education. The 
children of the wealthy are generally sent to 
France for instruction. In the Dominican 
Republic, and in Porto Rico, the schools are 
few, and generally poor. Trinidad has some 
good schools. The smaller islands have gen- 
erally made some provision for instruction, 
though, of course, the advantages are usually 
limited. 

In South America, we find the States of 
New Grenada, Venezuela, and Ecuador pos- 



PKOGEESS OF EDUCATION. 285 

sessing few schools, and those of a very inferior 
character ; a very large majority even of the 
white and Creole inhabitants can not read or 
write, and of the Indians the number who can 
do so is very small. In French and Dutch 
Guiana the condition of things is not much 
better; while in British Guiana there are 
many good schools, and about one in thirteen 
of the population, including the Indians and 
negroes, are in attendance upon them. Brazil 
is making great efforts to diffuse education 
among her people. The emperor is deeply 
interested in its promotion, and a very efficient 
system has been organized, but as yet can not 
be enforced, except in the larger towns. 
There are colleges, or faculties of science, in 
most of the principal towns, universities at 
San Paulo and Pernambuco, and academies or 
lyceums in the smaller towns. It will be long 
before schools can be very generally estab- 
lished through the empire, though the large 
colonies of Germans, which are settling at 
various points, coming as they do from the 
best sections of Germany, will render material 



286 HISTORY AND 

assistance in the work. At present, not one- 
sixtieth of the inhabitants are in school. 

The Argentine Confederation, and the State 
of Buenos Ayres, have hitherto paid very- 
little attention to education. The guachos, 
who form a majority of their native popu- 
lation, are a rough, semi-savage race, who 
care nothing for books, and regard schools 
with contempt. In Buenos Ayres, which, 
with the province of the same name, has 
recently assumed an independent position, 
and some of the large towns of the Argentine 
Confederation, there is a very considerable 
foreign population, who are generally intelli- 
gent, and who have encouraged the establish- 
ment of schools of a high grade. The news- 
paper press of Buenos Ayres is conducted 
with more ability than that of any other South 
American city. 

Uruguay possesses even less educational 
facilities than the Argentine Republic ; and 
the almost constant wars in which it has been 
engaged for some years past, have tended to 
reduce its inhabitants to a still lower condition 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 287 

of ignorance. Paraguay, on the contrary, has 
a system of parochial schools, established by 
the Dictator Francia, and, relatively to most 
of the other South American States, may be 
considered as occupying a high rank in the 
matter of education. Chile is in advance of 
any other State of South America, in its edu- 
cational condition. Its system of schools 
embraces all grades, from the university to 
the primary school ; and in some of the 
departments the primary schools are numerous 
and well conducted; in others, they are not 
yet generally established ; but in all, there is 
material and decided progress. The classical 
instruction in her colleges, especially in Latin, 
would do no discredit to a European college ; 
and her eminent naturalists have diffused a 
fondness for physical science, which will, ere 
long, yield abundant results. Bolivia and 
Peru are, like the States north of them, 
enveloped in ignorance. In the larger towns 
there are some schools, and in Lima a uni- 
versity, dating from 1551 ; but so large a 
proportion of the population of Peru are 



288 HISTOKY AND 

entirely destitute of education, that in tlie 
interior it is difficult to find men who can read 
and write, to fill the government offices. 

The impulse which has been given to edu- 
cation throughout Christendom, within the last 
fifty years, has already accomplished vast re- 
sults in improving all the apparatus of instruc- 
tion and the methods of teaching. In the 
German States, it has induced thorough pro- 
fessional training, by "means of normal schools 
and teachers' seminaries, the general abandon- 
ment of corporal punishment, the introduction 
of oral exercises, blackboards, and thinking- 
lessons ; — in Great Britain, a reduction of the 
extreme severities of former times, better 
qualified teachers, and greatly improved text- 
books ; — in the United States, very great im- 
provements in the architecture of school- 
houses, in the organization of normal schools, 
teachers' institutes, and teachers' associations; 
the introduction of globes, blackboards, charts, 
&c. ; a milder and better discipline, improved 
methods of teaching, and the substitution of 
of really scientific and well-adapted text-books 



PROGRESS OF EDUCATION. 289 

for the imperfect and ill-arranged treatises 
previously in use. 

Within a few years past, the competition 
in the production of school-books has perhaps 
been carried to an injurious extent ; but no 
one can compare those now in use with those 
in the schools fifty years since, without becom- 
ing satisfied that the progress has been almost 
miraculous. The danger most to be feared at 
the present day, in these books, is that the 
process of simplification may be carried too 
far, and the pupil be led through a wearisome 
round of text-books with but little real ad- 
vancement in knowledge. 

The improvement in school-architecture has 
been very remarkable, especially in the North- 
ern States. The admirable work of Hon. 
Henry Barnard on this subject has contributed 
very largely to this result, and has led others 
recently to enter the same field. 

But the most efiicient measures for the 
improvement of education have been the 
establishment of normal schools, teachers' in- 
stitutes, and teachers' associations and peri- 
ls 



290 HISTORY AND 

odicals. Here new and sound views in regard 
to instruction, the lessons of experience, and 
the deductions of science, have been dissem- 
inated among thousands of teachers ; and 
thereby the standard of teaching has been 
greatly elevated, and real progress has been 
made toward excellence. 

In the department of higher education there 
has also been material advance. The curric- 
ulum of study has been enlarged, the require- 
ments for admission raised; the examinations 
have become true tests of scholarship ; higher 
attainments have been required in the profes- 
sors; scientific schools have been established 
in connection with several of the universities, 
and separate schools of mines, chemistry, 
physical science, and civil engineering, organ- 
ized. 

Astronomical science, within the past fifty 
years, has made great progress, both in Europe 
and America ; and in every department of 
physical research, more has been accomplished 
than in any previous century. 

We may look with certainty for an advance 



PEOGEESS OF EDUCATION. 291 

proportionally much greater, in tlie coming 
fifty years. Civilized nations appreciate, as 
they have never done before, the advantages 
of education ; and, ere long, the teeming mil- 
lions of China, Japan, and India, driven from 
their slumber of three thousand years by the 
impulses of the electric wire and the rush of 
the locomotive, will join with the enlightened 
nations of the West, in seeking a higher 
intellectual development, and the beneficial 
results of a purer science. 



EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS. 



We present a carefully prepared Table showing 
the educational condition of the diflEerent States of 
the Union about the beginning of 1858. The col- 
umn of children of school-age embraces all between 
five and twenty. A part of the States having taken 
no enumeration of population since 1850, the pro- 
portion of scholars to population is not always ac- 
curate ; and in regard to attendance in the Southern 
and "Western States, we have reason to believe the 
published reports are frequently defective. We 
have invariably obtained the latest data to be had, 
and believe that it will give a more complete esti- 
mate of the state of education in the United States 
than has ever before been presented. 



294 



EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS. 



STATISTICS OF EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES. 

PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 



State or Tekritoby. 



Population. 
Latest 
Census. 



Whole 
Number of 
Children of 
School-Age. 



Whole 
Number of 
Scholars 
attending 

School. 



Maine 

New Hampshire 

Vermont 

Massachusetts . . 

Ehode Island 

Connecticut .... 

New York 

Pennsylvania 

New Jersey 

Delaware 

Ohio 

Indiana , 

Illinois 

Michigan 

Iowa ;, 

Wisconsin 

Missouri 

Kentucky 

Virginia 

Maryland 

Louisiana 

Tennessee 

North Carolina . . 

Georgia 

Alabama 

South Carolina . . 

Mississippi 

Arkansas 

Florida 

Texas 

California 



35,000 

8,030 

10,200 

7,250 

1,306 

4,750 

46,000 

47,000 

6,871 

2,120 

39,964 

33,809 

55,409 

56,243 

50,914 

53,924 

65,037 

37,680. 

61,352 

11,000 

41,846 

44,000 

45,000 

58,000 

50,722 

30,213 

47,151 

52,198 

59,268 

274,356 

155,500 



583,169 
317,976 
314,120 

1,133,123 
147,545 
370,792 

3,470,459 

2,311,786 

489,555 

91,532 

1,980,329 
988,416 

1,306,576 
511,672 
509,414 
552,451 
900,000 
982,405 

1,421,661 
583,034 
587,774 

1,002,717 
869,039 
935,090 
841,704 
668,507 
606,526 
247,112 
110,823 
212,592 
507,067 



208,854 
112,968 

96,568 
283,000 

35,902 

111,717 

1,058,324 

523,754 

196,944 

31,544 
792,019 
439,257 
369,064 
204,268 
195,285 
241,647 
302,323 
287,2^2 
414,318 
186,896 

96,280 
288,538 
■ 245,000 
275,316 
171,073 
114,282 
183,903 

75,000 

22,512 
104,313 

26,170 

7,694,251 



151,637 

96,199 

90,110 

203,031 

26,480 

71,269 

832,735 

598,768 

129,720 

11,468 

603,347 

195,176 

323,393 

142,334 

79,672 , 

167,110 

97,907 

139,805 

49,547 

33,111 

36,000 

126,817 

150,000 

77,015 

89,160 

19,132 

18,746 



17,232 
4,576,621 



EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS. 



295 



STATISTICS OF EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES. 



PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 



State or Teuritoby. 


Amount of 

Annual Current 

Expenses for 

hcliools. 


Average Wages 

of Teachers, 

inclusive of 

Board. 


Amount of 
School Fund. 


Av. No. 
Monlhs 

of 
School 
per ann. 


1 

A v. An. 
Cost of 
Tuition 
ta each 
pupil. 


Males. 


Females 


Maine. . ... 


$034,341.89 

215,942.00 

265,623.00 

2,346,309.76 

167,.519.75 

358,235.00 

3,299,898.93 

2,238,840.74 

503,929.48 

78,253.14 
2,432,069.65 
821,713.80 
302,998.00 
331,153.89 
198,143.00 
484,000.00 
486,975.11 
304,933.20 
176,645.61 

70,000.00 
312,235.42 
203,197.92 
272,320.00 

36,236.00 
490,690.00 

78,338.87 

81,205.29 
100,000.00 

46,060.01 
125,000.00 
156,712.00 


$27.30 

26.31 
26.92 
46.63 
34.50 
30.00 


$14.40 

14.74 
15.64 
19.17 
20.34 
16.00 


§166,346 


5. 
5. 
5.5 
7.5 

8.5 

7.8 

5.13 

9. 

7.6 

6.8 

8.03 

6. 

5.6 


$2.13 

2.98 

12. 

5.60 
3.02 
3.97 
7.09 
5.92 

3.30 
4.21 

1.60 


New Hampshire 

Vermont 

Massachusetts . . 
Ehode Island. .. 

Connecticut 

New York 

Pennsylvania. . . 

New Jersey 

Delaware 

Ohio 




1,653,082 

73,894 

2,046,397 

2,526,392 

430,583 
440,506 


24.00 
32.50 


16.60 
19.75 


27.71 
23.76 
25.00 


16.22 
16.84 
12.00 


Indiana 


4,929,866 

2,953,594 

1,884,288 

2,030,544 

2,845,846 

1,500,000 

1,455,332 

1,667,652 

150,264 

544,692 

584,060 

2,156,745 

300,000 

1,361,137 


Michigan 






Wisconsin 

Missouri 

Kentucky 


27.02 


14.92 


5.6 


2.;-5 






2.7 


3.70 
2.77 






Maryland 

Louisiana 

Tennessee 

North Carolina. . 

Georgia 

Alabama 

South Carolina. . 

Mississippi 

Arkansas 


















4. 
6. 


0.70 
1.27 
0.48 
1.33 
4.08 


25.00 


20.00 














600,000 
2,000,000 

500,000 
2,224,806 

466,000 






























California 








; 








1 




17,559-521 84 






86,992,016 







296 EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS. 

We add the following statistics and estimates of 
instruction in private schools, high-schools, acade- 
mies, and boarding-schools, and also the latest re- 
turns of institutions for higher education, in order to 
give in one view the magnitude of the educational 
interest in the United States. The estimates of the 
number, attendance, and expense of the private 
schools and schools of higher grade, are deduced 
from a careful examination of the returns of these 
schools in four widely separated States, and are be- 
lieved to be below rather than above the truth. 

Number of private schools, high-schools, and academies 11,500 

Average number of pupils, 30 ; total number 345,000 

Average annual tuition per scholar, $15 ; total expenditure. $4,575,000 

Number of boarding-schools 1 ,000 

Average number of pupils, 50 ; total pupils 50,000 

Average annual expense of boai'd and tuition, $150 ; total. . $7,500,000 

The statistics of higher education are from the 
latest reports : 

Number of Annual Expen. Total 

Students. per Student. Expenditures. 

124 Colleges 13,505 $161 $2,174,305 

51 Theological Institutions 1,520 130 197,600 

17 Law Schools 1,054 200 210,800 

42 Medical Schools 4,930 200 986,000 

50 Institutions forBlind, Deaf and 

Dumb, and Idiots 4,000 150 600,000 

20 Scientific Schools not con- 
nected with colleges 1,200 200 240,000 

$4,408,705 
Add to this the annual expenditure of private and boarding 

schools, as above 12,075,000 

And the aggregate annual expenditure for common-schools, 

as iriven in the table above 17,559,521 



And we have the enormous aggregate of. $34,043,226 

as the annual cost of education in the United States. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



A FULL bibliography of works on Education 
would of itself require volumes, and of course our 
limits preclude any extended list. We only pro- 
pose to indicate a few of the sources from which we 
have derived the facts presented in the foregoing 
treatise, for the use of such of our readers as may 
be disposed to pui*sue the subject further. 

Of works relating directly to the History of Edu- 
cation, we would specify the following as the most 
valuable : 

Teitz (Theodore). Systfeme Coraplet d'Instruction et d'Edu- 
cation. 3 vols Strasbourg^ 1843. 

SoHWAKZ (J. G. C). Erziehungslehre. 2 vols. .Leipsic, 1829. 

De Eiancy. Histoire de la Liberte d'Enseignement. . . . Paris. 

OzANAM. La Civilization au V*^™*- Si^cle. 2 vols Paris. 

De Viriville. Instruction Publique en Europe. .Paris.^ 1852. 

Perry (W. C). German University Education . Zo/i^Zo?!, 1845. 

Malden. Origin of Universities London, 1849. 

Schmidt. History of Education. (Harper's Family Li- 
brary) Neio Yorh. 

Hallam (Sir Henry). History of Literature in the 15th and 

16th Centuries, American edition Neio Yorh. 

13» 



298 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

SiSMONDi (J. C). Literature of the South of Europe. Anaeri- 

can edition New Torh. 

TiCKNOE (George). History of Spanish Literature .... Boston. 

Of Historical works bearing upon the subject in- 
cidentally, the number is very great. The follow- 
ing as well as many others were consulted : 

Niebuhe's Ancient History. 3 vols. Am. ed. .PhiladelpJiia. 

Dett's Ancient and Modern Nations New Yorlc. 

Xenophon's Anabasis. 

Geote's Greece. Am. ed. 12 vols New Yorh. 

Thielwall's Greece. Am. ed. 2 vols " 

NiEBunn's Eome. Am. ed. 3 vols Philadelphia. 

Aenold's Rome. Am. ed. 3 vols New York. 

Liddell's Rome. Am. ed. 1 vol •" 

Gibbon's Decline and Fall. Milman's notes. 6 vols. " 

Hume's England. Am. ed. 6 vols " 

Maoaulat's England. Am. ed. 4 vols " 

Lingaed's England. Am. ed. 13 vols Boston. 

Michelet's France. Am. ed. 3 vols Neio Yorh. 

KoHLEATJScn's Germany. 1 vol. Am. ed ; . " 

Neandee's Church History. 5 vols. Am. ed Boston. 

Mosheim's Church Histoiy. 3 vols. Am. ed New YorTc. 

Schaff's Church History. 1 vol. Am. ed " 

Hase's Church History. 1 vol. Am. ed " 

Gieselee's Church History. 6 vols Edhiburgh. 

"Wilson's India. 1 vol New YorJc. 

Mueeay's India. 1 vol London. 

Williams' Middle Kingdom. 1 vol Neio Yorh. 

Culbeetson's Flowery Land. 1 vol " 

Hilueeth's J^pan. 1 vol Boston. 

Peuet's Japan. 1 vol Ncic Yorlc. 

Smyth's Lectures on Modern History'. 2 vols London. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 299 

"Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians. 2 vols. Am. ed.,N'ew York. 
Kenrick's Egypt under the Pharaohs. 2 vols. " " 

Tenneman's History of Philosophy. 1 vol London. 

Lewes' Biographical History of Philosophy. 1 vol.. JSfew Yorh. 
Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences. 2 vols. " 
Pliny the Elder's Natural History. Translated by Bostoch 

and Riley London. 

Pliny THE Younger's Epistles. Trans, by Melmoth . . " 

Hallam's History of the Middle Ages. 1 vol New York. 

Prescott's Conquest of Mexico. 3 vols Boston. 

" Conquest of Peru. 2 vols " 

Conde's Arabs in Spain. 3 vols London. 

In General Literature, Travels, etc., the following 
with many others have been consulted : 

Irving's (W.) Mohammed and his Successors. 2 voIs..iVew York. 

" " Conquest of Granada. 1 vol " 

Layaed's Nineveh. 1 vol. Am. ed " 

" Nineveh and Babylon. 1 vol London. 

LoFTUs' Susiana. 1 vol. Am. ed New York. 

Livingston's Africa. 1 vol. Am. ed " 

Erman's Siberia 2 vols. Am. ed Philadelphia. 

Atkinson's Siberia, 1 vol. Am. ed New York. 

Earth's Central Africa. 3 vols. Am. ed " 

Wilson's Africa. 1 vol " 

Bowen's Central Africa. 1 vol Charleston. 

Kidder & Fletcher's Brazil. 1 vol Philadelphia. 

Page's La Plata. 1 vol New York. 

Brace's Norse Folk. 1 vol " 

Bayard Taylor's Travels. 6 vols " 

GiLLiss' (Lieutenant). Astronomical Expedition to Chili. 3 
vols Washington. 



300 BIBLIOGKAPHY. 

Of Biographical works, the following Biographical 
Dictionaries have been freely consulted, as well as 
numerous particular biographies : 

BiOGRAPHiE Gf;Ni:RALE. 45 vols Paris. 

BlOGEAPHIE UnIVERSELLE. 118 Vols " 

Gorton's Biographical Dictionary. 4 vols London. 

Eose's Biographical Dictionary. 12 vols " 

The English Cyclopedia — Biographical Section. 6 vols. " 
Blake's Biographical Dictionary. Kew ed. 1 vol. . . .Phila. 
Appleton's Cyclopedia of Biography. 1 vol N'eio Yo7'k. 

The following Periodicals have also been of great 
service : 

Barnard's American Journal of Education. First series, 5 
vols Hartford. 

American Educational Almanac — 1858 Boston. 

American Almanac — 1859 ^ " 

Mann's (Hon. Horace) Reports on Education — 1838-48. " 

Educational Reports of Canadian School System and of the 
Superintendents for 1856-7-8 Toronto. 

State Educational Periodicals for 1858. 

Annuaiee d'Education en France — 1858 Paris. 

Reference has also been made to Barnard's 
" Education in Europe," " Normal Schools," and 
"Papers on Reformatory Education," etc., and to 
several of the works of Pestalozzi, Niemeyer, Bloch- 
mann, Diesterweg, and others named in the body of 
this work. 



INDEX. 



PACB 

Abacus, The, used in Egypt 36 

A. B. C. shooters 165 

Abelard '. 155 

Abderrahman II. and III 109 

Achilles and Patroclns 63 

Agricola, Kodolphe 185 

Alcuin 142 

Aldrovandus 205 

Alexander the Great, a patron of learning 39 

" "a pupil of Aristotle 81 

Alexandria renowned for its schools 39,85 

Alfred the Great 146 

Algiers 274 

Antoninus Pins, a founder of colleges 96 

Aquinas, Summa Theologia of. 156 

Arabs, Education among the 101 

Arabic numerals introduced by the Saracens 149 

Argentine Confederation, Education in 286 

Aristotle 80 

Ark, The construction of, implying some education ^ 28 

Arnauld the Great 216 

Ascham, Eoger 196 

Asclepiades 62 

Association of the Ehine 185 

Assyrians and Babylonians, Early written language of. 30 

Athenaeum, The, founded by Adrian 95 

Athens, the resort of students 85 

Augustus, a patron of learning 9,5 ' 

Australia, Education in 276 

Austria, Education in 271 

Babylon and Assyria, Education in 46 

Bacon, Francis, Baron Verulam 216 

Barbarossa, Frederic, a Troubadour 173 



302 INDEX. 

FAGB 

Bacchantes 165 

Bavaria, &c., Education in 271 

Basedow, J. B 233 

Beauvais, Vincent de 168 

Bebel and Beatus Ehenanus 185 

Becker 236 

Bede, The Venerable 142 

Belon 205 

Benedictine monlvs as teacliers 152 

Bentley 214 

Bernard of Clairvaux 168 

Blochmann's pedagogical writings 272 

Boccaccio 175 

Boethius 135 

Bolivia, Education in .» 287 

Bologna, University of 151 

Botero, the geographer 206 

Brazil, Education in , 285 

Bi'aidwood, Thomas 237 

Bracciolini Poggio 178 

Bretigneres de Courteilles 252 

Brothers of the Christian Schools 228 

Bruchion, Library of the 39 

Buenos Ayres, Education in • 286 

Bugenhagen of Hamburg 195 

Burmah, Education in 275 

Busching 222 

Cain and Abel, Sacrifices of. 28 

Calmeeac, The Ill 

Calvin, John 186, 190 

Camden, author of the BriUania 204 

Canada Eastland West, Education in 279 

Capitularies of Charlemagne 144 

Cape Colony, Education in 274 

Cardan, Jerome 204 

Cassiodorus 134 

Casaubon of Geneva 203, 214 

Catechumens, Schools for 128 

Cellarius 231 

Ceolfric 141 

Chalcol 56 

Charlemagne 142 

Chartres and Citeaux, Orders of 153 

Chansons 173 

Chi-king, a Chinese text-book 40, 41 

Chile, Education in 287 



INDEX. 303 

PAGE 

China, Education in 275 

Chinese, Early education among the 39 

Chinese literaiy examinations 43 

Christian school at Alexandria 127 

Christina of Pisa ; 169 

Chrysoloras, John and Emanuel 176 

Clement the Hibernian IM 

Clusius and Csesalpin 206 

Comenius, John Amos 208 

Commandin and Clavius 204 

Comnena, Anna 169 

Comnenus, Isaac 157 

Colleges, Origin of 163 

Coeur de Lion, a Troubadour 178 

Conrad Celtes 185 

Con-fut-see ; 40, 41 

Constantin and Calepin's dictionaries 207 

Connecticut, Education in, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. . 224 

Council of Music in Mexico 112 

Cordova, its xuiiversity and library 109 

Crusades, their influence on education 165 

Cuba, Education in 283 

Cusanus, Nicolas 179 

Cyrus 50 

Dahlberg, Bishop John of 185 

Dante Alighieri 175 

Darda 56 

De la Salle, Jean Baptist 228 

De Metz 252 

Denmark, Education in «. 267 

Descartes 216 

Diesterweg's works on education 272 

Discipline of schools in the thirteenth century 167 

Domestic education among the early Christians 125 

Dominican Kepublic, Education in 284 

Dringenberg and Dalberg 185 

Druids, their system of education 98 

Ducpetiaux, Edward 252 

Durer, Albrecht. 205 

Early Christian schools • 128 

Ecolampadius 186 

Ecuador, Education in 284 

Educational writers of Germany 238 

Egypt and Ethiopia, education there in early times 35 

Egypt, Education in 273 



304 INDEX. 

PAGE 

Elyot, Sir Thomas 196 

England, Education in 255 

English colonies, Education in, during 1. .ii a' d 18th centuries 226 

Enoch instructed, perhaps, by Adam 29 

Epee, Charles Michel, Abbe de 1' 237 

Erasmus, Desiderius 186 

Ernesti 232 

Ethan the Ezrahite 56 

Eudocia, The Empress 169 

Felbiger 246, 248 

Fellenberg 246 

Feltre, Vittorino Kambaldini da 177 

Eenelon, archbishop of Cambray 217 

Fliedner, Pastor 273 

Florence de Radewin 181 

France, Education in 258 

Francke, A. H 217, 218 

Freyer 221 

Galileo, Galilei 205 

Gassendi 216 

Gerard de Groot 180 

Gerbert (Pope Sylvester II.) 162 

Germany, Education in 269 

Gerson, Jean Charlier de 168 

Gesner, Conrad 205 

Gesner, J. M 231 

Gilbert describes the use of the magnet 205 

Giles, Eev. Mr 253 

Giravd, Father v 246, 249 

Godefroy 217 

Graevius "214 

Greece, Education in 61 

Greek literature. Introduction of, at Eome 91 

Grocyn 196 

Gronovii, The 214 

Grotius, Hugo 216 

Guiana : French, Dutch, and British, Education in 285 

Gutsmuth 236 

Gymnasia and Academic Gymnasia 164 

Hukem II., a patron of learning 109 

Haroun Al Raschid, a patron of learning 107 

Haiiy, Klein, and Zeune 23S 

Hay ti, Education in 284 

Hebrews, Education among the 55 



INDEX. 305 

PAGE 

Hector's education 63 

Heinieke, Samuel '•••'_ ^^'^ 

Heman :...'; 56 

Herbert of Cherbury . . , , .' 216 

Hermolaus Barbarus 179 

Heyne 232 

Hieronymians 197 

Hispaao-Anierican States, Education in 283 

Hobbes of Malmesbury 215' 

Hoffman 222 

Homeric period of Greeli education 61 

Hugucs de St. Victor 16S 

Humanists 231 

India, its inhabitants the most Wghly educated of the early nations . 31 

India, its system of education 82, 33 

India, present educational condition 257 

Ireland, present educational condition 276 

Isidore, bishop of Seville 134, 136 

Jacobs and Creuzer 232 

Jaeotot, Method of 246, 247 

Jamaica, Education in 284 

Jansenists, their labors for the promotion of education 213 

Janua Linguarura Reserata, The 209 

Japan, Early education in 39, 45 

Japan, present state of education 275 

Jehiel-ben-Haehmoni, tutor of David's sons 56 

Jesus as a teacher 121 

Jesus, Society of, organized 1540 197 

Jesuits, Teaching of the 198-202 

Jewish scholars of the tenth century 150 

John of Beverley, bishop of Hagalstad 141 

Jubal, Musical uistruments invented by 27 

Justus Jonas 186 

Karens and Shy ens. Education among 276 

Kempis, Thomas a 168 

Kepler 205 

Kromay er and Helwig 208 

Lancaster, Joseph 246, 250 

Landino, Christopher 179 

Langius, Eodolphe 185 

Lapland and Finland, Education in 265 

LeVirexa Nebrissensis 180 

Liberia 274 



806 • INDEX. 

PAGE 

Lloyd Baker, T 253 

Locke, John 216 

" " and Leibnitz 216 

Loyola, Ignatius 197 

Luther, Martin 186-189 

Lyourgus, Spartan education deviised by 64 

Maestlin 205 

Magi 48 

Malacca and the Malaysian Isles, Education in 276 

Malebranche 216 

Manutius, Aldus and Paulus 203 

Massachusetts, Education in, during the seventeenth century 224 

Maurolycus of Messina 204, 205 

Medici family, patrons of learning 179 

Melancthon, Philip 18fi-189 

Melville, Andrew, principal of University of Glasgow 204 

Mereator 206 

Methodus Novissima of Comenius 211 

Mexico, Education in 161 

Michael Pala?ologus 158 

Milton, John 215 

Minnesingers 171 

Mohammed, his influence on education 103 

Muretus of Paris 204 

Mysticism 161 

Naples, Education in 263 

Nathan, a tutor of tlie sons of David 56 

Neander of Nordhausen 195, 207 

New Brunswick, Education in 279 

Newfoundland, Education in 279 

New Grenada 284 

New Zealand 277 

Nicolas v., Pope, patron of education 179 

Niemeyer's works on education 272 

Norway, Education in 265 

Novum Organon of Lord Bacon 203 

Oberlin, J. F., pastor of the Ban de la Eoche 238, 251 

Odescalchi and Tata Giovanni 238 

Odon, abbot of Cluny 153 

Onnniade and Abasside Khalifs, patrons of learning 106 

" Orbis Sensualium Pictus," The 210 

Oriental languages taught in universities 163 

Origen, a Christian teacher 128 

Oriyines, The, of Bishop Isidore 137 



INDEX. 307 

PAGE 

Orphan asylums founded by Antoninus Pius 97 

Orphic Hymns 62 

Ortelius 206 

Oxford University, when founded 148 

Palatine school, The 143 

Palimpsests 140 

Paper manufactured in Venice 166 

Paraguay, Education in 287 

Paul as a teacher 124 

Paul, the Lombard deacon 144 

Paul, Vincent de 238 

Pekin, Imperial college at 42 

Pelletier and Bombelli 204 

Peripatetics, The 82 

Persians, Ancient, Education among the 47 

Persian youth, how trained 50, 51 

Persia, Education in 275 

Peru, Education in 116, 287 

Peruvians, The, as road-builders 118 

Pestalozzi, J. H 241 

Peter of Pisa 144 

Petrarch 175 

Pirekheimer 185 

Plato 77 

Pol, M., of Euysselide 252 

Pnlitian , author of the Miscellanea 179 

Politics, The, of Aristotle S3 

Ponce de Leon, Pedro 185 

Porta, Baptista, and Peruzzi 205 

Porto Eico, Education in 284 

Prussia, Education in 269 

Puftendorf 216 

Purbach 179 

Pythagoras 70 

Quadrivium, The 132 

Quintilian, author of pedagogical works 97 

" Quipu," The 116 

Eaikes, Eobert, and Fox 238 

Eambach 221 

Eamus, Peter 204 

Eamusio 206 

Etiticli, Wolfgang 207 

Eegiomontanus 179 

Eeinold and Eothman 205 



808 INDEX. 



PAGE 



Eeuchlin 186 

Ehoeticus, Joachim 204, 205 

Eocliow 236 

Eomans, Education among the ancient 89 

Eonian historians 93 

Eoman poets 93 

Eoman architecture 93 

Eondelet 205 

Eoscellinus 155 

Eussiau education in the middle ages 158 

Eussia, Education in 264 

Salerno, University of 151 

Salmasius 214 

Sal viani 205 

Salzmann and Campe 236 

Sanchez and Alvarez of Spain 204 

Saracen universities and libraries 106, 109 

Sardinia, Education in 261 

Sarganeck 221 

Satira or Satyricon of Capella 132 

Saville, Sir Henry 204 

Saxony, Education in 270 

Scaligers, The, of Ley den 203 

Scapula 207 

Schwarz, Works of, on education 272 

Schweighauser 236 

Scotland, the first country in Europe to provide for parish-schools. 227 

Scotland, Education in 257 

Scotus, John or Duns, called Erigena 148 

Serapeum, Library of the, at Alexandria 39 

Shepherd Kings in Egypt, their tyranny 38 

Siam, Education in 275 

Sicard, Abbe 237 

Sierra Leone, Education in 274 

Sigonius of Italy 204 

Sirventes, The 173 

Society and Sandwich Islands 277 

Socrates 75 

Solomon, Learning of 55 

Solon 67 

Spain and Portugal, Education in 260* 

Spalatin of Altenburg 195 

Spener, Philip J 217, 218 

Spinosa 216 

Steinmetz 222 

Stephens, the author and publisher of the Thesaurus 207 



INDEX. 309 

^ PAGE 

Stevinus 205 

Sturm, John 19'5 

Siiarez 216 

Sudras prohibited from learning to read 33 

Sulzer 238 

Sweden, Education in 266 

Sylburgius and Heyden 195, 207 

Sylvius ^neas (Pope Pius II.) 178 

Tartaglia 204 

Tartary, Education in 275 

Tasmania, Education in 277 

Tauler, John 168 

Te-xt-books of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries 166 

Tliibet and Tonquin 275 

Trarp 236 

Trinidad < 284 

Troubadours and Trou veres 171 

Trotzendorf (Friedland) 194 

Turkey, Education in 263 

Turner, Eev. Sydney 253 

Tuscany, Education in 262 

Tycho Brahe 205 

Tzabeans 48 

Ubaldi Guido , 205 

United States, Education in 279 

Universities founded in the twelftli and thirteenth centuries 154 

Uruguay, Education in 286 

Valla 178 

Varro, tlie most learned man of his time in Eome 96 

Vegino, Maplieus 178 

Vehrli, Jacob 252 

Venezuela, Education in 284 

Verger, Peter Paul 178 

Vespasian, founder of the first college at Kome 95 

Viger and Labbe, authors of a Latin Grammar 214 

Viller's, M., account of the Jesuits 198 

Vinci, Leonardo da 180 

Virginia, Legend of 90 

Von Eaumer's works on education 272 

Werner, Gustavus 273 

Wernerius, his Pandects ' 152 

West India Islands, Education in 283 

Wichern, J. H 252 



310 INDEX. 

"William of Champeaux n 

Winipheling IJ 

Wolke 22 

"Wright and Gilbert 2C 

"Wursticins, Christia- 20 

"Wurtemberg, Education in 27( 

Zartnsht or Zoroaster 5? 

Zeller, brothers, The 25 

Zend-Avesta, The 4 

Zeune 2? 

Zinzendorf, Count 2£ 

Zuinglius 186, IJ 



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